My Last Girls Name
by 2amWritersClub
Summary: Things seem to be going great for everyone especially JD, his life's just starting, right?
1. Prologue

_**My Last Girls Name**_

A/N - This is set at the end of season three right after Turk and Carla get married the only difference being that JD hasn't screwed things up with Elliot by telling her he doesn't love her and they are still a (relatively new) couple.

JD's internal monologue is shown in italics, _like this,_ and daydreams in bold, **like this.**

Disclaimer; I own nothing apart from the knowledge that I won't get any awards for originality with this story but hey, I'm writing it for fun and to feed my (and anyone else's) unhealthy addiction to angst!

**Prologue**

_You know how when everything in your life suddenly starts to go right and you almost don't notice 'cause you're so used to it screwing up, well I think that's __what's happened to me a little._

_Things have been grea__t, and although I bitch__ every now and then, __I can see __now __with hindsight that __they've been great__ for a while__. Stuff just __seems to be working out for all of us. _

_Turk and Carla got married and are __off __enjoying their honeymoon (unless Turk got his way and managed to smuggle Rowdy with him). Dr Cox __has finally realised that he loves me like a son and has had a T-Shirt __made__ which says 'I'm JD's mentor' in rhinestones on the front...__Ok, that last part's just in my head but back in real life he __and Jordan seem to be making things work as a __family, __which__ has mellowed him a tiny bit, and a__s for__ me, well I finally feel like I'm pulling everything together as a doctor, that the ratio has shifted from __me __being totally green to __having __a degree of__ confidence in myself and __being a little bit, well, established at what I do. _

_Oh and before I forget__ the best part__, I'm __actually making things work__ with El__liot. Granted it's only been __two__ weeks but believe me __that's a real achievement considering __we have __enough combined neurosis__ to screw thing__s up within __two__ se__c__onds if we __really __put our minds to it._

_So yeah, great! Things have been great! _

_Even a day like today can't put me off my stride. I lost a patient on the ICU earlier, well, two to be exact, but one of them, Mr Horowitz, he was an old guy. 86 years young as he liked to say, who'd had a long and full life. I did everything I could but with his stomach cancer as advanced as it was it was pretty much a given that I'd lose him as soon as he came in. I could deal with that and move o__n. _

_The other guy, __he was different, a little more complicated and __I didn't so much lose him in the dead sense but more like lost as in someone took him. OK, I'll get to the __point, Dr Cox took him. Off me! __He said he did it to help me out but as he isn't usually the most helpful guy on the planet I really think he did it to put me back in my place a bit. Maybe he sensed my growing confidence and Jedi like mental poise and felt he had to squash __me back down_

_They guy I was tr__eating was a real jackass__, even though he was unconscious. In my head I'd mentally likened him to his brother and his brothers__'__ scary friends who were hanging around and being jackasses. __He'd been in a car smash. Nothing t__o__o serious but he'd gotten the steering wheel pretty much jammed into his gut and ruptured his spleen. We'd turfed him to surgery who'd turfed him back __with a whiney note on his chart about how we could 'maybe put ourselves out a little and get his temperature and probable infection to toe the line' before they removed the very thing that was helping him to fight it off. _

_That pissed Dr Cox off no end and he was certainly on a roll by the time he reached me as I stood by my patients bed trying to explain to__ his brother and __Neanderthal friends why he'd been wheeled back in without so much as a paper cut let alone the major abdominal surgery we'd promised him._

_Normally I had no problem with patients or patients' relatives but these guys were all so oppressive. Big guys low on __brains__ and high on anger. They reminded me of high school jocks only without any of the social skills and intelligence required to kick a ball around – hey, see I _can_ do sarcasm!__ I have to remember to tell Turk! Anyway, t__hey didn't give me any __grief__ or anything, well __nothing __I couldn't handle, but they were loud and __obnoxious._

"So what you're saying is Danny here can't have surgery yet 'cause you didn't do your job properly? Huh, 'cause it sure as hell sounds like that to me!" The man yelled in my face, his own face turning a worrying shade of puce.

'Mr Peterson, your brother does have a temperature and MILD infection but nothing that MOST surgeons would postpone surgery for. The doctor who was scheduled to perform the procedure has his own views on this though and would rather we calm the infection down first. It's not a problem it just ..."

"Not a problem? How is it not a problem when you have a tube stuck in him draining blood out of his side and he isn't even getting what's bleeding fixed! What kind of place is this that has doctors like you screwing around with people?"

"Look, Mr..."

"What are you anyways, thirteen, fourteen? When the freaking hell did you qualify?"

His face was right in mine as I tried to calm him down and I was aware of one of his friends standing by his side with a meaty hand on his shoulder, holding him in check a little. "This is a teaching hospital but I assure you Mr ..."

"You're a fucking student? Is that what you're telling me?"

He stepped back and shoved his hands through his hair as he laughed. "I want a proper doctor here now!" He demanded.

I stood my ground, refusing to be intimidated or bullied by this guy. I know I can do my job and he's just scared for his brother I told myself. I need to get his friends out of here, pull the curtain and sit down with this guy and calm him down. I could do this, I knew I could. I didn't get the chance though as I felt someone step up behind me his breath, dangerously close to the back of my neck. Ok, this guy, the guy stood behind me, _could_ bully me. Could, would and did, most days. I rolled my eyes a little as he started to speak.

"Alrighty, what in Gods' name is going on here, and if I didn't make myself clear over the course of the last three years Suzie, I don't really want _you_ to answer, I will find out for myself why you and your oh so blushing good looks have got these nice hillbilly folks so stirred up."

Mr Peterson stopped his hair tugging and stared at Dr Cox, his mouth open a little. Even his dumb entourage seemed to shrink back. Dr Cox faced him. "What's the problem?"

"I just ...I just wanna make sure my brothers being taken care of right, that's all." He shrugged and cast a fleeting look at me.

"And you're worried that Dr Dorothy here isn't up to the job, is that it?" Dr Cox raised his eyebrows.

"He just ... he told us he was going for surgery and now he's telling us something else ... and he seems a little young." He muttered, his bluster and bravado of a moment ago having shrunk somewhat.

"OK." Dr Cox turned to me. "I'll take this one Virginia. Why don't you check on Mrs Wagner in 402? She needs a chat and a shoulder to cry on about those thrombolytics we might have to push later. It'll be right up your alley Betsy. Take a hankie and some of your cover up and lip gloss." He turned back to Mr Peterson and the chart he'd tugged out of my hand, his back squarely in my face. "Oh and Ginger, show Mr Petersons friends to chairs please. They are nothing if not in my way."

_Gritting my teeth and swallowing down the usual sigh that presented itself within my chest whenever Dr Cox went o__f__f on one of his rants__ I motioned to dumb, dumber and dumbest and walked them over to the waiting area by the nurses__' station__ while they laughed and muttered 'Ginger' under their collective beer breath, __before I carried on to Mrs __Wagner's__' room. God I miss Carla, she'd stand up for me and tell Dr Cox he's being a jerk. _

**Suddenly**** Dr Cox ****appears ****on all fours praying to**** a leather clad ****Carla's****' feet for mercy as she gives him a tongue lashing.**

_Luckily the jarring pain of Dr Cox __bumping my shoulder as__ he __walked towards the __lounge, __hands dug deep in the pockets of his lab coat__, brought me out of that semi disturbing daydream.__ Right, I thought. Carla's not here so it's time to stand up for myself!_

_

* * *

_"Dr Cox!" 

"You're aware, Newbie, that you are standing between me, my soap and my rapidly thinning patience, right?"

"I've done it before and I'm not afraid ...um...to do it now ...again ...now." I shuffled my feet.

"But I'll have to threaten to whack you on the nose again Cindy. Why d'you wanna make me do that huh, huh? Why?" His eyes never left the TV.

Suddenly a wave of bravery and a tiny bit of calm swept over me and I straightened my shoulders and reached up to turn the TV off.

"Look Dr Cox, that patient, MY patient, Mr Peterson, I woulda calmed his brother down if you'd given me the chance and I really would appreciate you easing up on the crap you send my way in front of my patients. You can call me Ginger, princess, whatever when we're in the corridors, elevator, coffee shop but please, I'm asking you as a colleague, to rein it in even if it's just in front of the patients, you know those annoyingly sick people who look to me for support and guidance."

"You done big boy?"

I took a deep breath. "Pretty much." I nodded as I worked to stop my voice squeaking.

"Good. I just thought that those guys looked like they were giving you crap you could do without after an eighteen hour shift that's all. But your complaint is noted. I won't burden you with my assistance again"

He flicked his nose and settled further into the couch. I turned to leave, feeling suitably guilt ridden. He'd just been trying to help me out and I'd ...no, wait up! _I'm not going to let him guilt me._ His motives might have been good but his manner was way out of line!

"Thanks, really for the help, but next time could you just try it without belittling me in the process." I said evenly.

His eyes met mine dead on and there was something there that I couldn't quite make out. It might have been the hint of an apology but it was gone so fast I couldn't be sure. Suddenly he cleared his throat and nodded. "OK." He said simply, his gaze still steady. After a moment he carried on, "That was a pretty ballsy speech there, Newbie. You wanna go take a minute in the supply closet?"

"God, yes!" I breathed as I rushed out. I think I heard him snort out a bark of laughter as he got up to jab the TV back on.

* * *

_Ah, the security of the supply closet! The __safe, warm__ feeling I get in there hasn't diminished even since my first day hiding from a coding patient. Of course it's warmth was pretty much not going to fade if you were in there with the girl of your dreams. I'd snuck in straight after I'd left the lounge. Normally I felt a little guilty for skiving in here but my shift had actually ended twenty seven seconds ago so I was all __right__y__ and guilt free. Elliot on the other hand wasn't._

"I shouldn't be in here!" She shrieked.

"Well, why are you then?" I whispered back as I pressed her against the shelves along the back wall.

"The OBGYN girls are on the prowl again. I thought I threw them off the other year but they want my soul and those bitches are not backing off!"

**Suddenly there they were, the OBGYN girls prowling through the darkened corridors of Sacred Heart all of them dressed worryingly like Zena, all of them hunting down a scared looking Elliot who appeared to be wearing rabbit skins ...** "Mmm, I miss Zena ..."

"JD!" Elliot snapped.

"What? Oh right, just take a deep breath Elliot. I won't let them take you." I muttered as I kissed her ear. "Besides you're horrible with babies. They'd toss your soul back down here to internal after a couple of hours."

"I am not horrible with ...why are you pressing me up against the shelves?" She demanded.

"It's a small room."

"No, it really isn't. There's a good couple of feet behind you, JD."

"OK, cause you're my _girlfriend__" _I sing-songed, "and I like the way that sounds when I say it and I like getting _jiggy_ in the supply closet with you and I'm off now and you're not so I wanted a kiss before the long walk home." I said in one breath.

"And Turks still away and you're lonely." She finished, her brow raised.

"Yeah, but I don't make out with Turk in the supply closet. Only you, pretty blond doctor." I smiled what I like to think was a winning smile at her which must have worked because she smiled back.

"I can't JD. I really need to get back to work. I do have a second to do this though." She smirked as she rounded on me, switching our positions so my back was against the shelves and my chest was pressed up against hers. In a second our lips were touching and her hand had slipped down the waistband of my scrubs and into my shorts.

"Are you abusing me in the supply closet Dr Reid?" I mumbled against her mouth.

"Absolutely, Dr Dorian." She breathed, her lips staying pressed to mine as her hand moved up and down.

* * *

After Elliot finished abusing me... And that really is a lovely sentence I'd like to say more often... I went to my locker, grabbed my stuff and started to head out for the night. I made it to the exit and was just trying to fix the earphones of my I-Pod into my ears when someone stepped in front of me. Looking up I found myself staring in Mr Petersons face.

"Mr Peterson." I stated pulling my earphone out and letting them dangle.

"Yeah, look Dr Dorothy I ..."

"Dorian, it's Dr Dorian." I sighed.

"Oh." He looked confused for a second before he started again. "Look, I just wanted to say ... well...um, I'm sorry, for before. I acted like a complete tool. I was worried and stuff but there was no excuse."

I shook my head a little, "Don't sweat it, things can get a bit crazy when you're worried about someone who's close to you Mr Peterson, we see it all the time."

"I know but ... still. That other doctor he said you were one of his best residents and hell, I don't really know what a resident is but I guess it's good, huh?" He smiled weakly.

I smiled back.

"Anyway," He carried on. "The other doctor said you'd be back on my brother's case tomorrow so ... I wanted to say ... sorry."

So Dr Cox was tossing the guy back to me! And he said I was one of his best residents! ... _Why not THE best, my evil inner voice asked before I squashed it down._ I had to admit I was surprised. Maybe he had listened in the lounge. Well, there's a first time for everything I suppose.

I smiled again at Mr Peterson, "If that's what Dr Cox said then yeah, I'll be back on his case tomorrow." I nodded reassuringly at him and took his hand as he held it out to me. "You might want to ask your friends to hang back a little tomorrow though, just until he's a little better." I said. I really didn't want them under my feet again.

"Those guys? My friends? You're kidding right? They're my brothers crew not mine. Assholes the lot of them. I already got them to leave and I told them to back off. They'll stay away until I give them the word."

"Ok, Mr Peterson. Take care and I guess I'll see you and your brother tomorrow."

With that I put my earphones back in and left the hospital.

I had to admit I was feeling very pretty pleased with myself. The guy had apologised, Dr Cox had apologised in his own way by tossing my patient back to me (and by saying the 'best resident' thing which I would think about later when the moment was right) and Elliot had given me an interesting introduction to madam palm and her five lovely daughters in the supply closet so, going back to what I said earlier things were going great. Apart from having to walk home because the janitor and sloppy Joe guy had trashed my bike.

As I left the car park and headed down the alley way that provided a handy short cut to my apartment it finally dawned on me that this was my beginning, my start. Everything I'd worked for over the past few years had brought me to this contented moment where I finally saw that my life was on the brink of starting, for real.

Looking back it was kind of ironic that I had that thought at that moment because it was _at that precise moment_ that everything stopped.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

_OK__, maybe what I just said __back there __was a little on the dramatic side. Elliot must be rubbing off on me in more ways than one. Really, that girl could make opening a box of pop tarts dramatic! _

**Elliot lies, ****silent movie style, ****tied to a railway line****, a steam train thundering her way ****as she s****truggles to open a**** pop tart box with her hands tied. **

_"If it were a talkie the air would be blue with Fricks!__"_

_Anyway back to what I was saying. I may have over dramatised with the whole '__My Life S__topped!' bit, but in my defence I don't really know how to describe what my life is doing at the moment._

_I can only try to sort out what's going on by cutting it down into little pieces, making a list of sorts. My list goes something like this; _

_Things I know_

_It__'s dark. _

_I can't see anything._

_I can hear stuff._

_I know. As a list it kinda sucks with just the three things on it but you __have to believe me __when I say __it was damn__ hard work making it up to three. For a fair while I only had the 'It's dark' bit and that wasn't going to impress anyone! _

_The darkness was the first thing I noticed. I mean it's pitch dark, there isn't a single chink of light anywhere so I guess there are no windows or doors near me. Wait, that's just dumb. There has to be a door else how would I have gotten in here? Sorry, I'm rambling. I think I'__m doing that a __lot... __I __think..._

_Where were we? Oh, yeah the dark, back to the dark. __It was the first thing I noticed when I became aware of myself again. I tried to make something, hell anything out but __no matter how much I __strained my eyes there was just ... __nothing__. I felt deep down that maybe this should worry me __but obviously __I__'m not __taking__ myself__ too seriously__ because I think I just __forgot about it and __fell a__sleep. _

_The next thing that registered with me was the noise, or rather noises. There are two of them. One is there all the time, a bit like Dr Cox when he's mid rant, it's a kind of background hum that you're aware of but don't let yourself get immersed in. Like I said, this noise is there all the time, it'__s __a low whooshing noise mixed with a higher pitched whine. If it were louder I'm sure it would be really annoying but it's not bad, comforting even and I think listening to it makes me fall asleep._

_The other noise I don't like. I know __what it is and__ I don't like it__. It's people, voices and they're making me scared, scared like when you're a kid and the school bully has you pinned down on the football field while he decides what to do with you. It isn't like they're saying anything bad to me, in fact I don't even think that they're in the same room but I can just about hear them whispering__. There are two of them. I don'__t recognise them, I can't even __make out__ the__ir__ words__ but one of __the voices __makes my insides squirm__ with that anxiety you get when you forgot to do something or are late for something big__. That voice I don't like._

_The fact that I can hear them must __mean __they are close by and therefore they must know I'm here and if they know I'm here but haven't acknowledged me that must be bad and that, my friends__ has led me to a conclusion!_

_I think I've been kidnapped._

_Oh and I have one more thing to put on my list;_

_I want my mom._

_

* * *

_Elliot shuffled her feet and nervously tucked her bangs behind her ears for what Perry thought must have been the hundredth time in the last hour. He on the other hand was as calm as the Dead Sea. Of course he conveniently discarded any memory of making nervous guy cry half an hour earlier because he was wearing dark blue scrubs and Dr Cox had decided it was 'light blue scrubs day'. 

Sitting back in his chair, legs sprawled and hands linked behind his head, Perry tried to ignore the shuffling, hair styling and most of all the incessant clicking of the clicky top pen Elliot twizzled between her fingers. Suddenly his patience gave out and he let out a shrill whistle that made her jump, the pen skittering across the table and on to the floor.

"Barbie, would 'ya calm down for crying out loud. It's just the cops. They're not interested in you, they will not arrest you for anything and they will not want to interrogate you for anything, they won't automatically know everything about you just because they're cops."

He looked across at her as she wiped wet makeup all over her face leaving her looking like a deranged clown. Suddenly she looked a little calmer and nodded.

"Of course they will automatically know about the time in high school you sneaked a look at your hoo-hah with your moms compact mirror just so you could fit in with all the other girls who'd done it the night before." He fixed her with the most serious look he could muster.

Elliot's face transformed to a look of total disgust. "I have never done that! Why would ...why would anyone do that? And anyway everyone at school knew it was a trick. The lesbian girls get you to do it to see if you're on their side!"

Perry wrinkled his face in total confusion. "You do know don't you Barbs that if you can't learn to love yourself then no one else will, m'kay."

Elliot was about to argue back when she suddenly laughed. Admittedly it was a small, defeated laugh but it was a laugh all the same and although he'd never admit it to anyone it was what Perry had been looking for.

"You're a bastard, you know that, right?"

Normally Elliot would have been too terrified to say anything like that to Dr Cox but somehow, she knew that under the current circumstances she could get away with it. Especially with Carla and Turk away, it felt as if all they had was each other and that was a scary, creepy thought, she acknowledged to herself, as she shoved her bangs behind her ears and waited for the cops.

* * *

_I know__, I know. That last addition to my list did come from way outta left field because it's been a while since I wanted my mom for anything. After dad left she stopped being the 'I want my mom' kind of mom so I think things must be really bad if I'm having thoughts like that. I should be OK though because I haven't started wanting my brother yet. When that thought pops into my head I'll know I'm screwed._

_I do know something else though and it's this;_

_There are other people here._

_Not just the whispery people but other people _in this room_. I know this because __I'm __occasionally hear__ing__ things which sound like little coughs or moans. Now I'm not sure if this supports or scuppers the 'I've been kidnapped' theory. _

_At first I had the idea that I'd been kidnapped because I'm a doctor a__nd the kidnappers could want to do one of two things; __Force me to get drugs from the hospital for them__ or f__orce me to remove peoples' kidneys to sell on the black market._

_The problem with these two ideas is that it's probably easier for an addict to walk into Sacred Heart and get drugs from the pharmacy just by asking than it is for a doctor to get all the paper work together to get his hands on two Tylenol and I'm __pretty sure the kidney thing is just an urban myth Turk told me __so he could scare me with his 'Vicious Kidney Thieves' joke in the middle of the night_

_So if I'm not wanted because I'm a doctor then I've decided it must be for my body and __that __I and some other very good looking people have been kidnapped so we can be sold.__ Now this may seem extreme but it's all I can come up with right now. I've decided to be stoical about it though. I won't let __them__ take me (literally) I'll fight for my freedom to the end!_

_Oh god, who am I kidding! I'll be a Russian mafia bosses__'__ bitch before I can say 'het'._

_I'__m so weak ...dammit!_

_

* * *

_This was the biggest dumb-assed waste of time Perry had ever endured. He'd been trapped in the board room for twenty minutes with Barbie waiting for the cops and in that time he could have been treating patients, scaring interns ...hell even talking to Jordan, anything but this! Suddenly he pushed himself away from the table and stood up. 

"That's it. I'm outta here." He flicked his nose and headed for the door.

"Dr Cox. Please just wait. Don't make this any harder than it already is. Please."

Perry stopped, his hand on the door handle. He took a deep breath. "This really isn't my kinda thing here Barbie and I don't think I can tell them a whole lot so ..."

"Neither can I but they asked for us and if it will help then we're going to wait!" Elliot's voice reached a high pitch.

"You know only dogs and dolphins can hear you right now?"

Elliot simply stared at him, silently, until he blew a breath out and stamped back to his chair.

"What can I say to them sweet cheeks? He was at work, he left, he didn't come back the next day. That's all I got." He slumped back into his chair.

"It's all I got too." She sniffed.

The ensuing silence was only broken when the door to the board room opened and a tall, dark haired man entered the room. He looked at Dr Cox and Elliot expectantly.

"Um, Dr's Cox and Reid?"

Dr Cox stood up, his arms crossed over his chest. "Yeah, look can we get on with this ... we've been hanging around for a while now."

Detective Jefferson Monroe was momentarily taken aback but he didn't let it show for longer than a second.

"I tell you what, I'll be the one to throw in the social niceties shall I? Nice to meet you, I'm Detective Monroe and I've been assigned to this case. Sorry to be ignorant here but which one of you is Dr Reid and which is Dr Cox?"

Perry immediately hated the detective and narrowed his eyes accordingly.

"I'm Elliot Reid." Elliot said as she proffered her hand to the detective.

"Which makes you Dr Cox." Detective Monroe smiled a humourless smile Perry's way. "Shall we start with you then Dr Reid?" He motioned for Elliot to sit back down as he pulled a chair out for himself.

"You're a colleague of Dr Dorian's?"

"Um...yes, we're friends, well I'm his girlfriend and we work together." She stumbled.

"How long?" He caught Elliot's confused expression. "How long have you worked together?"

"Three years."

"And dating?"

Elliot looked uncomfortable. "Just a couple of weeks. But on and off before then."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"Yesterday, just before he left his shift at around 8pm. He knew I wasn't getting off until later that night so he said he was going to go home. He was a little bored because his roommate is away...on his honeymoon."

"Does this roommate have a name?"

"Sure, Chris Turk, but like I said he's on his honeymoon. He works here, so does his wife. We're friends, we're all ...friends..." She trailed off.

"So there wouldn't be anyone to miss him if he were late getting home or if he didn't turn up?"

Perry watched as a tear rolled down Elliot's cheek. "She just told ya, genius, his roommate is away and she was here. His family don't live close by, so no, no one would have noticed."

"And are you one of his friends too Dr ...ah...Cox?"

"I'm his boss."

"Right. Notice anything odd about him yesterday or see anything unusual?"

Perry leaned back and pushed a hand through his hair. "Like what for gods' sake? It's a hospital. He did an eighteen hour shift, he left to go home, same as all us poor saps do every goddamn day! What would I see? Oh wait, now come to think of it there was that strung out junkie who asked me if there was anyone leaving at 8pm whom he could follow and do god knows what to!"

Detective Monroe licked his lips and shook his head a little. "I understand you're a little fraught Dr Cox but I have to ask these questions, granted they seem trivial, even to the point of being inane and they probably won't help but I have to start to make a case somewhere and this is the only place there is. Understood?"

It wasn't really a question Perry realised as he nodded tiredly. "He worked his shift, he had one patient die on him, one wanting to switch off his service and eight more that stayed alive and contented, then he left, really, that's all."

Detective Monroe nodded and stood up. "That should do it for now."

"That's it?" Elliot snapped as she stood up, her chair falling back and clattering to the floor.

"That's it." Monroe replied. "I know this is absolutely no help to you or comfort but these things happen, more than you think. I get one of these every month or so, no motive, nothing."

"And what happens to these apparently motiveless crimes?" Perry pressed as his face creased into a look of disbelief.

"They don't get solved and then they fade away." Came the reply.

* * *

_OK, OK, back to it JD, you can do th__is just focus and hang in there;_

_Things I Know_

_It's dark._

_I can't see anything._

_I can hear stuff._

_I want my mom._

_They did something to me!_

_Right! You heard me, they did something to me only I don't know what. I just know that I must have been asleep or something and now I'm back I feel different. It's my head, it's ...u__m__...buzzing, yeah buzzing like it's gonna explode or something and I feel panicky as shit! Like I can't catch my breath__ and my stomach is rolling. I keep thinking that I want to cry and for a second I think I am crying but then I realise I can't feel tears on my face_

_A__nd then there's this darkness! I swear it's getting darker! Like, how can that be 'cause it was pitch black before so it can't be __'__pitcher__'__ can it, so I try to blink and clear my vision and I think blink but__ then__ I don't think I do...does that make any sense? And __then when I try to clear my thoughts__ and stay calm about the dark all I keep hearing in my head is a poem I did in high school, the one that talks about night time in a little town being bible-black, sloeblack, __crow-black__... aargh! I can't get it out of my head__, bible-black, I can hear the two voices whispering again, sloeblack, and the other noise is changing, separating into two and then merging back together, __crow-black__, I think I've been drugged ... and I've got, as Dr Cox would say, a re-he-__h__eally__ irritating welsh poem in my head!_

* * *

"Barbie, you ready?"

Elliot looked up from the nurses' station to see Dr Cox and Dr Wen looking at her expectantly.

"Sure." She answered flatly. "Are you sure it's the right time, I mean we shouldn't wait any longer?"

Dr Wen shook his head as they all moved along the ICU to the bed at the furthest end of the open plan room.

"I wouldn't risk it. This is the most stable he's been in the last twelve hours and I wouldn't like to leave that inter-cranial pressure rising for any longer. We should go now." Dr Wen said calmly.

Two of his O.R nurses were waiting at the bed they were headed toward with a gurney. When they reached the patient Dr Cox unhooked the IV bag from its stand and settled it on the patients' stomach, his face absorbed in what he was doing while one of the nurses worked on disengaging the heart monitor and pulse-ox wires.

"Barbie, you OK to disconnect the vent and bag him, then we'll lift, OK?" He fixed her with a stare that made her throat dry and her stomach twist. "You can do this Elliot." He nodded slightly and she nodded back and then turned her attention to disconnecting the tube from the connector valve at the patients' mouth and re-attaching the connector valve to the bag which she started to squeeze gently.

"Not too fast Barbie." Dr Cox warned at they began to lift the patient from the bed and slide him across onto the gurney. "You want me to take it from here?" He asked her.

"No, I'll run with it." Came her automatic reply as they began to push the gurney out of the ICU and down to the OR.

As Perry watched them move away he suddenly became aware of how tired he was and dumped himself down on the now empty bed. Elliot and Dr Wen had long since disappeared along with the gurney but he couldn't tear his gaze away from the corridor. Finally he pushed himself up, swiped his hands over his eyes and then dug them into his lab coat pockets.

"You'd better come out the other side there Newbie or I'm gonna be really pissed." He muttered to himself as he absently straightened the rumpled, redundant sheet on JD's bed.

* * *

_I think something else is happening because now my list just got shorter, which surely is the wrong way around isn't is? Shouldn't it get longer? _

_Anyway I can't hear stuff anymore, there was whispering, again with the scary voice, but that stopped and so did the __whooshy__, whiney, sleepy noise and the dark, well I'm not sure if it's dark or not. It isn't that it got lighter or anything it's just that ... well... I just don't know if it's dark and that not knowing is just a little unnerving so I'd rather not think about it just now. __So to recap;_

_Things I Know_

_Um ...give me a minute would you?_


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

_One week later_

As the cab drew up outside Sacred Heart, Carla Espinosa – Turk felt her heart sink. She wasn't ready for the fantasy of her wedding to be over just yet and the days since it happened had flown by at an alarming rate. Also she didn't want to stop making out in the back of the cab quite just yet either so she settled further into the back seat and tugged her husbands T-shirt to take him with her. His lips were still pressed to hers as he started to talk.

"Mmm, baby, whose idea was it to get a flight that dropped us back home on the day we have to go to work?"

"That was yours sweetie." She mumbled back, a smile playing around her mouth. "It feels too soon doesn't it?"

He leaned back and gazed seriously at her face. "You got that right."

Suddenly he noticed where they were. "Yeah!" He yelled, pumping the air with his fist. "We're home, we're home, we're ho – ome!" He sang raucously.

"Try to contain your sadness Turk." Carla glared at him.

"Oh no baby, I am sad about being back really, but why dwell on it? We can have plenty of other holidays my fine Latina queen!"

"Holidays? That was not a holiday Turk, it was our honeymoon, you know, that once in a lifetime trip that starts a couple off on the road of marriage the right way, the vacation that can make or break a relationship!"

Turks eyes were wide. "You never put it like that before we left. You maybe should tell a brother something is that huge _before_ it starts so he can at least try _not_ to screw it up!"

Carla looked at him and smiled sweetly. "I'm just messing with you baby and holding you back from jumping out this cab and squealing for JD."

"You're an evil woman, you know that?"

"You better believe it." She smirked as she leaned in for another kiss, only to feel him slipping from her grasp as he sidled out of the cab door.

Once she had paid the cab driver Carla dumped their case down in front of her and gazed up at the windows of the hospital. Here we are again, she thought. Suddenly she was aware of Turk saying something to her. "Sorry what baby?" She sighed.

"I was just saying, where's my Vanilla bear? I texted him when we landed and then when we got through customs.."

"And again when we got the cab and once more when we were ten minutes away." She finished.

"Well he didn't reply and I wanted a Vanilla-ish welcome back committee." He sulked.

"Well, suck it up, we got a Cox-ish welcome back committee instead." She nodded towards Dr Cox who was leaning against the railings staring right at them.

"That's just weird." Turk muttered as he scowled his displeasure. "Maybe he's mad at me, I mean it just wasn't workable him coming too ..." He said under his breath but unfortunately not low enough for Carl to miss it.

"You actually had that conversation didn't you?" She demanded.

"He's my best bud." Turk shrugged his shoulders and tried to look apologetic as Carla shook her head.

"I'd like to hope Turk that one day you'll love me as much as you do JD."

* * *

Perry stared at the cab as it pulled up outside the hospital. He could see Carla and Turk in the back seat, Carla with her arms wrapped around her husband in a tight hug. They were kissing he thought. Nice. A nice way to end a honeymoon, a honeymoon that he was about to piss all over in a big way. He shook his head, his stomach curling in knots at the thought of what he was about to do. 

He wasn't overly worried about Ghandi. Hell, he was a big boy, should really be able to take a few punches below the belt when life felt like throwing them. It was Carla he was worried about. His soft spot for her was still, and would always be, well, soft and he hated the thought of upsetting her, that and putting a cloud over what should have been the happiest time of her life.

From this moment onwards whenever she thought about her wedding it would lead straight to her honeymoon and ultimately to this crappy moment they were about to share. Taking a deep breath inward he leaned against the railing, his hands dangling over the peeling metal.

They were out of the cab now, Carla looking at Turk in indignation leaving Perry to wonder what amazingly dumb thing he had said now. As he studied them he noticed Turk staring up at the windows of the hospital and Carla staring directly at him. Dammit! She was staring _at him_! That meant he'd have to say hello and start the conversation of doom.

"Dr Cox" She called, waving over to him, Turk sulkily by her side.

Perry nodded and pushed himself off the railings and walked down the steps to meet them. "Hey Carla. You and bowling ball head have a good time?" Nice Perry, real nice, his little internal voice mocked. He'd sworn to himself that he wasn't going to be an ass. Once again, dammit!

"Great thanks Dr Cox. And you? Had a good time without us?" She smiled as she linked arms with Turk who was still scanning the windows and then the door behind Dr Cox.

Perry shoved his hands in his coat pockets and raised his eyebrows. "Ah, you know how it is here." He replied noncommittally. He was about to carry on when Turk fixed him with a stare and cut him off.

"So where's JD? He off today?"

Perry cleared his throat. "Look, you two got a half hour before your shifts start so why don't we go to upstairs and grab a cup of that piss water they call coffee?" He laughed a dry, short laugh.

Carla glanced at her watch. "I really don't think we have time we should be starting in ..."

"Yeah...Carla lookit, don't worry about the time 'kay?"

* * *

Carla sat with her elbows on the cafeteria table, her finger tips massaging slow circles on her forehead. Tentatively she raised her eyes towards her husband sitting directly opposite her. He was fiddling with the sugar packets he'd emptied out of the dispenser in front of him, trying to get a toe hold in the story Dr Cox had just told them both. 

"Just run me through this again." He said tightly as he struggled to keep his anger in check.

"I told you Ghandi ... I..."

"Just humour me, huh?" Turks voice raised slightly.

"Like I said, I was on as Betsy's shift was ..." Perry was stopped short by the flat of Turks hand slamming down on the Formica table top.

"Don't even think about doing that right now, you supreme asshole of a human being." Turk glared. "He has a name, _my friend_ has a name, so use it!" He snapped, his voice still low.

Perry ground his teeth, wondering when it was that everyone decided they could call him things like 'bastard' and 'asshole' to his face, but then he realised Turk was right, that was him all over, always the asshole on the outside.

"I was on shift just as his ended and he left. Next morning I'm still on only he doesn't show. Anyway about a half hour after his shifts supposed to have started I get a call from Dan saying the cops called him about his brother. They'd been calling him half the goddamn night but he was in a club, didn't hear his cell."

"Why didn't they contact me?" Turk asked, looking at Carla.

"JD had Dan's number in his wallet. Seems he was his 'go to guy' for emergencies." Perry supplied with a wry laugh.

"Why didn't he put me down?" Turk said, his voice sounding suddenly defeated.

"Most people will put a family member down as an emergency contact even if they don't see them that much. I think it's when you contemplate anything big and bad happening you realise that when push comes to shove you want your family, whatever or whoever they are." Dr Cox said simply before he carried on. "When I got to him he was in the ER and they were just about ready to turf him up to us. He'd been there a few hours but there was no one down there who recognised him." Perry swallowed, "It was hard to recognise him."

Suddenly Perry grabbed Turks empty coffee cup and crushed it up into a lump, tossing it in the trash can by the table. He felt his anger rising and knew he couldn't keep it from his voice "Hell if they'd just gone the extra mile and checked in his bag they'd have found his hospital ID and I woulda' known earlier and I could have ..."

"Done what?" Turk asked. Shaking his head he carried on. "What about the cops, what are they doing about this?"

"What do you think? He was found unconscious in an alleyway by some pizza delivery guy. There was no one else around and his phone, I-Pod, wallet everything he had worth taking had been left alone. Whoever did it just did it for the hell of it." Perry paused, "They kicked the crap out of him and left him there just for the hell of it. Cops said it was a motiveless crime and we shouldn't be surprised, happens more often than you think apparently." Perry slumped back in his chair and took a slug of the cold dregs of his coffee.

"And that's it? It happens often so that makes it OK or not worth investigating?" Turk pressed.

"No, it doesn't mean any of that ... geez...it just means they'll never find who did it or why!" Dr Cox finished.

Suddenly Carla who had been silent throughout spoke. "I want to see him." She looked Dr Cox firmly in the eye as if to dare him to say no. He didn't speak though, just gave a curt nod of his head and stood up.

* * *

Elliot sat on what had to be the most uncomfortable chair in the hospital. It was one of those with a deep seat and high back covered in the nastiest leatherette she had seen outside of a nursing home. It was the type of covering that stuck mercilessly to your butt in summer and sent it sliding to the floor when it was cold. She had to find a better chair she told herself as she slid forward and jarred her ankles for the tenth time in so many minutes. 

Maybe there was a more comfortable way of sitting, or she could always go home and sleep, after all she'd had a night shift and hadn't gone home yet so ... Oh who was she kidding? She wouldn't leave, hell she practically lived at this place now. Standing she dragged the chair closer to JD's bedside. Once it was near enough she kicked off her shoes, slumped back down in the chair and stretched her legs out, propping her feet on the bed. If she flexed her toes she could rub them against JD's side she realised.

For the first time in the last few days her mind was blank and that wasn't as good as it sounded. It meant she had time to think and thinking was bad. Thinking about JD and his condition was bad. When he'd first been brought up to the ICU he looked terrible and she found that she physically couldn't face him. She'd spent a lot of time hiding in the supply closet until Dr Cox had found her and told her firmly that hiding wouldn't make it go away.

When she had finally faced him she felt nothing, nothing but numbness.

The whole right side of his face was covered in bruises that left the skin livid and bloated, his right eye swollen shut and wet looking, its dark lashes glued together. He had three stitches in his upper lip which had been split right through most likely when it came into violent contact with his teeth and on his temple, almost lost, was a vague bruise, pale in comparison to the riot of colour decorating the rest of his face, pale but dangerous.

The irony of that faint bruise hadn't been lost on her when she and Dr Cox found out that it was that particular injury that left him facing the possibility of significant damage, not the violently weeping eye or the livid patchwork of blood clotting under his skin , even the kicks to his stomach and chest hadn't left such lasting and insidious damage as that one vague blush of a bruise.

Of course the bruises and swelling had reduced over the last couple of days so much so that if he were to wake he would just be able to open his eye but this happy reduction in damage was overshadowed now by the thick white gauze padding which covered the right side of his head where Dr Wen had operated the week before.

Blinking back the tears that were prickling her eyes she suddenly leaned forward and pulled off her thermal socks. Rubbing her feet to warm them she then pressed them lightly against him, sliding them down his side until they rested on his hip, just above the edge of the thin hospital blanket.

Closing her eyes she revelled in the contact of skin against skin, smiling as she thought how if he were awake he'd jump a mile at the cold and his own ticklishness. _If_ he were awake that's what he'd do, but he wasn't and Elliot missed his warmth.

* * *

"Turk?" Carla looked at her husband as they stepped out of the elevator and he stayed in it. "Come on." She held her hand out to him. Reluctantly he took it and walked with her down the corridor after Dr Cox. Suddenly he stopped again. 

"I can't go in that room baby." He muttered to his wife as he pulled her back to stand with him. "I just can't."

"Yes, Turk, you can and you will because your friend needs you." She gave him a long look. "It won't be as bad as you think. What you imagine is always worse." Squeezing his hand she led him to the door where Dr Cox was waiting.

* * *

"Hey Barbie, using him as a foot warmer?" 

Elliot jumped. "I didn't hear you come in I was ju... Carla! Oh my god, Carla I am so..." In a second she was hugging her friend close, her arms tightly wound round her neck until Carla felt like she couldn't breathe.

"I missed you so much!" Elliot breathed as she let go. Carla pressed her palm against the side of Elliot's face and tried to give her a smile that died as soon as she caught sight of JD. Seeing him laying there, surrounded by machines and covered in wires and tubes, made the tears that she had held back earlier run down her face freely as she tried fruitlessly to swat them away with her hand.

Turk stood at the foot of the bed reading from the chart. "Three broken ribs, bruising, facial lacerations and ... Inter-Cranial haemorrhage." He finished. "Great. What did Dr Wen say?" He looked directly at Dr Cox.

"They operated to relieve the pressure as soon as they could but the MRI showed pretty clearly that the blow to his skull caused significant brain damage, we just can't tell what the extent of that damage will be until he wakes up."

"He shown any signs of trying to breathe on his own?" Turk asked, wincing inwardly at the sight of the ventilator tube plumbed into JD's mouth.

Perry shook his head. "Not yet but it's early and ..."

Turk cut him off mid sentence. "We all know that the longer you leave someone on a vent the harder it is to get them off it so don't feed me that BS you give your other patients relatives." He flipped the chart shut and shoved it back on the foot of the bed.

"Turk, stop it, you're upset, we all are!" Carla's voice softened a little. "It's OK to be upset, you don't have to hide it or take it out on anyone else like that."

"Upset? Upset, woman, I'm a little more than upset right now. This," He pointed at JD and set his mouth into a hard angry line, "this doesn't happen, this should not happen and ...and I .."

In a second Carla was at his side, pushed up on her tip-toes, arms wrapped around his neck as he buried his face in her hair.

After a moment she whispered in his ear. "You OK now?" She felt him nod against her neck.

"It's not BS Turk." Elliot said in a small voice, "What Dr Cox was saying about the vent wasn't BS it's just ... we're trying to stay optimistic that's all and we've been pretty much doing that by ourselves for the last week."

Turk nodded as he dried the tears on his face. "I'm sorry, I just don't know where my head is at, you know?" He gave a half hearted smile.

"Yeah, we know." Elliot replied.

* * *

_Jesus Christ! What the hell was that?_

_Now there are ways to be woken up and ways to be woken up and that, whatever it was,__ was no way to be woken up!_

_Calm down JD, deep breaths and calm down. Right, now where the hell am I__ and what is that pressing against my side. __Is it someone touching me?_

_I think I remember being kidnapped, no wait I think I remember __thinking__ I'd been kidnapped, hmm, funny!_

_I__'m not kidnapped, I'm in bed and t__hat was one mad, crazy dream. I think I'll tell Turk that we can't play 'Cheese'__ before bedtime__ anymore. Damn__ I feel like crap and I'll bet without even opening my eyes and looking at my clock that I'm late for my shift. Crap and double crap._

_I don't understand it though. I didn't drink last night, did I? I don't think I did__, mind you I can't really remember what I did__ do__ last night and ...oh for the love of god will whoever is touching me quit it__, it's making me cold!_

_Hey, they stopped. I must have woken up with some new psychic power thing going on, awesome!_

_Anyway enough already, time to get up. _

_Nothing._

_Ok, once more with feeling, time to get up!_

_I'm not getting up, or opening my eyes even. __Hmm._

_I think my body has stopped listening to my head. __Oh well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I am really annoying when I talk so ... __Oh, I know, m__aybe I have finally become floating head doctor and my head is actually at work and my body is here utilising precious in bed time._

_Aagh, what the hell is that? Noise and lots of it really suddenly, it's like a high pitched squeal and a whole mess of sharp sounds. Again aagh! It really needs to stop now, my head ... it'__s splitting__ ... I...Oh, it stopped._

_OK, __I'm officially worried now. Something is not right and I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore. I need to think, clear my head and think__, take things one step at a time. _

_I'm lying down, so I __must be__ in bed but it doesn't feel like my bed and it smells, well, like Sacred Heart, so I think ... um...I think I must be in hospital... OR I fell asleep in my scrubs again and that's why I smell like the hospital! But if that's true and I'm in my apartment all snuggled up why can't I open my eyes, why can'__t I move? _

_Oh G__od,__ I can't move!_

* * *

A/N – I was worried that the Prologue and Chapter One were really confusing so I hope if they were this Chapter helps to clarify a little! I wanted to write it this way because speaking as someone who has observed the effects of getting kicked in the head, I can safely say it scrambles your brain, even when the results aren't as serious as JD's are going to be, so, I wanted the reader to get a feel for the confusion in JD's head! I hope it worked without being too difficult to keep track of. 

Also I forgot to mention that the poem JD is thinking of in Chapter One is Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, so, hats off to Mr Thomas.


	4. Chapter 3

A/N – JD's internal monologue is in italics, _like this._

JD's thoughts on/internal responses to what he hears other people saying are in bold italics, _**like this**._

**Chapter Three**

Carla's first day back at work had officially been a wash out as she and Turk had spent most of their time sitting with JD. One good thing did come out of it though, she had managed to persuade Elliot to go home and get some rest and a shower before her next shift began and today she was back in the hospital looking rested, which made Carla's internal 'mother hen' happy.

Well, as happy as she could be under the circumstances. Going back to their empty apartment last night had been harder than either she or Turk imagined it would be. They hadn't really given it much thought until they walked through the door and the stale smell of a place that's been shut up for over a week hit them.

That wasn't what really upset her though, it was the stuff that was lying around, waiting to be picked up at a moments' notice but instead left, abandoned. It wasn't even anything significant, just weird random stuff that you'd usually walk by or automatically tidy up. There was a bowl on the kitchen counter that held a gruesome mixture of an unidentifiable soggy cereal and thick, curdled milk, a half cup of week old coffee, yellowy-white on the top where the creamer had separated out and on the couch one of JD's T-shirts, balled up, obviously thrown there in haste, probably as he rushed to get ready for his shift.

All these little signs of a life that had been left hanging tugged at Carla's throat as she swallowed down a sob that threatened to burst into life.

And then there was Turk. She'd never seen him this way before. The way he was reacting was just so ...surprising...to her. She'd held her breath when Perry told them what had happened as they sat down in the cafeteria, waiting for him to break down and cry but it never came. He was just angry, angry and hard. Even when they hugged in JD's room he hadn't really broken and that worried her, worried and scared her more than she wanted to admit. JD was his best friend and although Turk wasn't the type to gush like JD was she knew that he loved him and to see him like that, hear about what had happened, must be tearing him up inside.

All she could do was wait for it to come and hope that while it was coming he wouldn't actually punch Dr Cox or let his anger manifest itself into anything that he'd regret later.

"Hey, Carla." Elliot's arrival at the nurses' station brought her out of her thoughts.

"You look better for a decent nights' sleep." She replied as Elliot gave a small smile and picked up one of the charts in front of her. "So, why the guilty face?" Carla asked absently as she searched for a pen so she could start her patient updates.

Elliot screwed her face into something Carla had grown to recognise as Elliot's 'I'm about to lie to you face.'

"I don't look guilty...why would I?" She trailed off.

"I have no idea sweetie but you sure as hell look it. Tell Aunty Carla." She wheedled, leaning forward and abandoning her pen search.

"I just feel so awful going home and leaving him here." Elliot confessed her voice small.

"So what's your plan, huh, you live here until you die of exhaustion the very minute he wakes up? Devoted, yes but a little too Romeo and Juliette for my liking." She smiled, placing her hand on Elliot's arm, making Elliot shift back a little, her discomfort obvious.

"No I..." She shook her head and leaned heavily against the nurses' station. "No, yes, I don't know, but I do know I feel crappy about going home and taking a shower and going to bed, just doing normal stuff when things aren't normal. Carla, I just want him to wake up and be OK and..."

"We all do Elliot but life never works like that, you know that. Look, all we can do is be there and support him but we have to be realistic. From what Laverne tells me, you and Dr Cox have been switching shifts so that one of you is always around to sit with him while the other is working. How long do you think you can keep that up, huh, even with me and Turk back to help? We just have to wait, be patient and see what time brings."

"How can you be so calm?"

"I'm not calm Elliot, believe me, on the inside I want to rampage through this place and smash everything that's breakable and then some things that aren't, but it won't help me and won't help anyone else, especially JD."

"You sound like Dr Cox. I was kinda hoping that when you got back I could have someone to be angry with." She sniffed and swiped a tear away from her cheek.

"You can have Turk. He's Mr Angry personified, but I told him the exact same thing I just told you."

"Did it help him?" Elliot sounded hopeful.

Carla laughed, "Nah, he ignored me just like you're going to."

Elliot smiled and pushed away from the counter taking a couple of charts with her. "I better get going." She said.

Carla watched her as she walked away when suddenly something Elliot had just said registered within her mind.

"What do you mean I'm like Dr Cox? He has to be angry, he IS ALWAYS ANGRY..." She called after Elliot who simply turned back to her and shrugged.

"I know," She called back, "Go figure."

* * *

Perry stood in his patients' room, feet planted wide apart and his hands clasped behind his head. He tutted and snorted sharply from his nostrils making him look like a bull about to gore a particularly annoying matador. 

Or a particularly annoying patient.

It wasn't that he was annoyed with JD it was just that he was frustrated even though training and experience told him that frustration was fruitless and patience was the only thing that was any use right now.

Ah, screw experience he thought. He just wanted the kid to wake up, because he knew that for all the patience in the world the longer it took the worse it would be. Suddenly a cool voice from just outside the room disturbed his train of thought.

"Are you trying to stare him awake, 'cause it might work with Jack but as far as I am aware he isn't drugged up to the eyeballs like DJ here. Unless of course that is how you get him to sleep through when I'm away." Jordan teased.

Perry smiled. "And why, sweetness, are _you_ here today?"

"Board meeting." She replied "And by that I of course mean _b__ored _meeting." She mimed a yawn that made him smirk.

"Wanna get a coffee?" She asked.

"I feel too unnerved by you speaking to me without shrieking so I'm gonna pass, honey."

"Perry, when you've stopped being a complete ass do try to see how hard it is for me to actually be genuinely supportive of you without using it against you at the same time. It's like asking me not to breathe but, this annoyingly time consuming situation that Sally Sensitive has stupidly gotten himself and all of you who care into, compels me to be nice to you."

Perry looked at her and laughed. "I'm sorry." He apologised.

"Ooh, that was painful wasn't it?"

"Damn right," He smiled as she turned to leave. "Hey, did you just say that I cared about someone other than myself?" He scowled at her as she smirked and nodded. "Well that was just low, Cruella, low."

* * *

_I'm back again. _

_I took some time to try to work stuff out and I'm pretty sure I'm at Sacred Heart. I'm in __a bed and__ I can'__t move, __I can't hear anything and I can't feel anything. __Based on this I decided that something bad must have happened to me. __I also decided that it probably isn't the best time for kidding around __anymore __so now my little internal monologue has a kinda bummed out vibe to it._

_Oh well. _

_In addition to this I've __decided to entertain myself by making a list. Now I know what you're thinking, that my last foray into list making was kinda dumb with the whole thinking I was kidnapped stuff, but really there's not much else to do so here goes;_

_Things I Can Do_

_I can think._

_I can breathe._

_It's pretty short but t__hinking and breathing are usually__ key to being alive so I suppose if you had to pick anything they aren't too shabby a choice._

_I wish I could hear something._

* * *

As Jordan left, Perry took up the chart from the end of JD's bed and read through the list of vitals that had been taken over night. 

Nothing had changed, _absolutely nothing_. "Aagh, dammit!" He wanted to hurl the chart across the room he felt so frustrated.

"And Elliot said you weren't angry anymore." Carla said from the doorway.

"Whatever gave her that idea?" Perry answered as he wrote something on the chart.

"She says you're not angry about what happened. I find that a little hard to believe." She said simply.

Perry shook his head and started to search around for a pressure cuff. "What's angry gonna do? Never solved anything else in my life did it?"

"Isn't that a bit of a departure from everything you stand for?" She looked incredulous.

"You're right, you're absolutely right but when I talked to the cops I realised that this is just another sucky moment in the suck fest that is called life. Like they said, it was motiveless so how do you find motiveless Carla, how do you find it and indict it and lock it away? They'll never get who did this and there's no one and nothing to rail against because it _was_ stupidly motiveless!"

"That's incredibly Zen of you Dr Cox." Carla said, her tone a little bitter.

"I know and it scares the shit out of me. I think my anger got replaced by acceptance and that's not something I ever wanted to happen. I liked my anger and my anger liked me." He pulled at the pressure cuff until the Velcro gave, allowing him to wrap it around JD's arm.

"That's a nurses' job, give it to me." Carla pushed her way in front of him and took JD's limp arm. "He feels cold."

"He's fine Carla, don't start trying to mother him to death, he's got enough problems."

"He should be in a gown. I'm gonna go get one when I finish this."

"Carla, he's got too much stuff attached to him and if he crashes the gown'll only get in the way. Just leave it, he isn't cold."

His voice softened as he saw Carla's face flush.

"How about you get him another blanket?" He asked kindly.

"Right." As she came back with the blanket she watched as Dr Cox took JD's pulse and noted it on the chart.

"So why are you doing all our nurse stuff?"

"Just wanna make sure everything's right."

Carla scoffed, "Oh, now I _know_ you didn't just mean that to sound how it did!"

"I just wanna be in control here Carla, is that too much to ask?"

"Don't flash me those hurt eyes Perry Cox. The nurses _can_ do this stuff. Laverne and I have them checking his stats every half hour." She settled the extra blanket over JD and pulled it as far up his chest as the machine wires would allow, her hands gently smoothing it on top of the bandages wrapping his ribs. "My break's just started. If you've finished playing nurse I'll buy you a muffin." She smiled.

* * *

_You know that saying, 'If wishes were horses ...we'd__ be living in Pon__yville ...__well I think that's how it goes__, anyway I __wished I could hear and now I can!_

_I was laying here (of course)__ and t__hinking (naturally)__ when that awful__ car crash of a noise came back__ only this time it didn't make my head feel like it was going to split in two! This time is kind of started to thin out and separate into three different noises, and what's more I know what they are! Yay me!_

_If I could move I'__d do a happy__ dance_

_I can hear the steady (thank god for that) beep of a heart monitor and the intermittent lower beep of a Pulse-Ox. _

_You know those Pulse-Ox things are so funny. Patients usually think they're something that should beep all the time and it can be fun to see the looks on their faces when it stops for like a minute and then starts up again.__ Well, funny unless you're the patient._

_The other noise isn't so good. I can hear a regular whooshing noise,__ like __one of those foot pumps you__r__ dad would use to blow __the__ paddling pool__ up with__ when you were a kid__, and a little part of my brain, which I am trying really hard to ignore, tells me it'__s a ventilator._

_I don't want to be on a vent. I don't want to lay on my back __for __so lo__ng that I get fluid on my lungs;__ I don't want my body __to forget the natural mechanism__ of taking a __breath;__ I don't want t__o get sores in my mouth from a plastic tube_

_I just want to breathe._

* * *

As Carla and Dr Cox entered the cafeteria they saw Elliot sitting with Todd. 

"We really should rescue her, you know." Carla suggested.

"Do we have to?" Perry whined.

"Yes." She frowned. "Hey Elliot, Todd."

Carla and Dr Cox sat down with their coffee and silence descended.

"What's up?" Carla asked.

"I'm cheering Todd up." Elliot replied, looking miserable.

"And how is that working out for you beefcake?" Dr Cox asked Todd.

Todd just took a deep sigh and shook his head.

"His double entendre's broken." Elliot explained.

"Wow." Carla muttered, her voice low. "Can he even speak without it?"

"Shocking! And just how did this loss to the English language happen?" Perry quipped.

Todd stayed quiet.

"JD did it." Elliott patted Todd's back. "Look, I can even touch him and nothing...Hey Todd, breasts! Not a thing." She shook her head.

"I can't. I just feel empty. It seems there _is_ an end to my innuendo and it's all his fault."

"JD's? How?" Carla felt confused and judging by the irritated look on Dr Cox's face, so did he.

"I can't fool around when everyone's down. Turk won't even high five me and he's always ready for a high five from The Todd. It just doesn't feel right for me to be on a roll when another brother is out for the count."

"I never knew you felt the bonds of male comradeship so deeply there Dr All-Talk." Perry goaded as he fought with a sugar packet, finally pulling at it so hard it burst all over the table.

"It's not just comradeship Dr Cox, you have to understand that JD is on my 'alternative list' and it puts a curve in my game to think I may have to cross him off it."

"I know I will live to regret this but, your _'__alternative list'_?" Dr Cox asked tentatively.

Todd smiled. "I don't believe in limiting myself. If I see awesome hotness, I see awesome hotness. You can't always control where you see it." He pointed his finger at Dr Cox. "I know _you know_ what I mean Big Dog." Todd nodded his head sagely and pushed himself away from the table. "I think I'm gonna go to the chapel."

Once Todd had left, Dr Cox turned his attention back to Carla and Elliot.

"Did everyone hear that or have I just drunk a cup of crazy?"

"I heard it." Elliot whispered. "It was beautiful."

Dr Cox gave her an incredulous look before Carla cut in. "Her favourite film is Brokeback Mountain."

Perry raised his eyebrows. "Alrighty, I think Carla that you should take Barbie here to the on call room and make her lay down."

"Yeah," She nodded absently, "And I think we should get JD that gown."

* * *

_I think I can feel it, the vent._

_I've been asleep for a w__hile and since I woke up__ I__'m pretty sure I__ can feel things, including the vent__ilator__ tube. I can't move my tongue but I __realised__ my mouth feels full and __for a moment __I __think __about __reaching up with__ my hands so I can__ feel my face, to see if the tube is really there.__ I think about it, but I don't do it._

_I tried to kid myself earlier that I was in a room with another patient and it was their ventilator I could hear, but deep down I know that's not true because I can feel the forced regularity of my breathing now, the perfectly timed rise and fall of my own chest and the dull ache awakening within it._

_I do__n't feel any instinct to cough though, to force the wretched thing u__p and that's what I need to do, but it's just not there_

_I can feel something under my fingers on my right hand. Material, cheap and a little rough. Must be a hospital blanket. I can feel it on my __stomach and __legs too. _

_I think I'm naked. Why does that make me want to laugh?_

_I can feel the Pulse-Ox on __one of __my finger__s__ on my left hand. It pinches._

_I can feel something __across__ the top of my right __thigh__ too. I think it's a __tube; __it's warm __where it presses __against my __skin... __I wonder...Wait, I can feel this stuff but I can't move. _

_I can feel the blanket but I can't rub it. I can feel the Pulse-Ox but I can't push it off my finger. I can feel the ventilator tube but I can't cough it out!_

_What the hell is wrong with me? __I'm scared and for __a moment__ I want to cry, so I think __'__cry__'__ and __I __expect to feel the trail of hot tear__s__ o__n my face but there are none. There's n__othing._

_I want to cry but__ I can't even do that._

* * *

Dr Kelso was mad and he was going to let them know it. It wasn't that he expected Interns to know much, but thinking they would at least be able to answer _one_ question during rounds wasn't asking too much was it, really? No, it wasn't and it made his blood boil to think of the money being invested in this latest bunch of half wits. 

He turned on them with a smile. "I didn't realise it was Fall already!" He suddenly glared at their confused faces "but as you are all a special kind of stupid I'll have to explain my little joke for you. You see fall is when the farmers harvest their crops so I say again I didn't realise it was Fall already or has an especially benevolent farmer just delivered you turnips early?"

Seeing their still blank looks Bob sighed and curled his lip.

"I know, I'll illustrate my point with our last patient, shall I?" With that he stalked into the next room with the Interns at his heel.

"OK, what can anyone tell me about this patient? You, ginger girl or should I be charitable and call it strawberry blond?"

"Um, he has a ...um... he had surgery to relieve Inter-Cranial pressure, the operation was successful but he's been on assisted breathing since and hasn't yet shown any signs of waking however his pupils _are_ responsive and ..."

Kelso frowned. "You could speed it up Annie and just say he's a vegetable."

"But, sir he's not a ..."

"Anyway we're here to answer a more simple question. When I do rounds tomorrow what would I find more rewarding, to take you bunch of simpletons with me or to simply wheel Dr Dorian around and ask him the questions?"

* * *

_I can hear voices__. I can't make out the words, they sound distorted like I'm underwater or maybe at a David Lynch movie._

_Is that Dr Kelso? What's he saying?_

* * *

As soon as he saw Kelso leading his sorry band of dejected Interns down the corridor Perry jumped down from the nurses' station where he'd perched and strode over to JD's room. 

"Stop right there!" Carla yelled "Don't you dare take those vitals, I will do it."

She pushed past him and scooted over to the bed.

"It's not a competition over who can take care of him the most Carla."

"No it's not, it's a case of me doing my job and you doing yours and then when Elliot is out of her lecture she can start to put her two cents in too and then Turk can pitch in when he's out of surgery! Honestly you're all in here so much none of the nurses can get anything done!"

**_Hey, is that Carla?__ She sounds pissed. I wonder what she's saying?__ I wish I could make sense of the words._**

"We're just helping Carla." Dr Cox argued, swiping at his nose.

"Hindering! You're hindering, Dr Cox. That's what you're doing. Now go away while I check all the monitors."

**_Did she just mention Dr Cox?__ Hey, did I just understand what she said? I think I did._**

"I'll help." Perry muttered stubbornly.

"You don't have other patients?" Carla asked, knowing full well he had a full service.

_**That was Dr Cox, I heard him and I understood him! Oh thank God!** _

"None that can't wait... Carla did this catheter get checked last time you were in here?"

"I didn't take the last set of vitals but it should have been checked then, why?"

_**I think I'm wet somewhere. Wet and warm. Never a good combination, it's oddly nice though, reminds me of being in my Moms bed. Oh. It reminds me of being in trouble...**_

"For cryin' out loud Carla, it's infiltrating!" Perry gritted his teeth, trying to keep his annoyance hidden and failing.

"Dr Cox, I don't know how this happened, maybe it wasn't placed right ... I .."

_**Oh, don't shout at her!**_

"Dammit, Carla it's backing up and leaking because it wasn't emptied! A goddamn candy striper could see that!"

_**Please don't.**_

Carla snapped on a pair of gloves, moved over to the side of the bed, stripping the covers back. "You can stand and yell or you can help me and get me some water and paper towels." She snapped as she worked to remove the catheter.

**_Ow! Jesus __that stings._**

"What's done is done, it just needs cleaning up OK. I won't let it happen again!"

"Oh, I'm sure Newbie's just psyched to hear that, aren't you kid?" He put the bowl of warm water onto the over bed table and snatched up a fist full of paper towels. "Watch your step there, the floors covered in it!"

**_Who's touching me? Is it Carla, Dr Cox? They've got their hands on me. Someone__'s __lifting__ my __right __leg to __the__ side, drying me off. __They're wiping across__ my __stomach __down __my ...__ Oh God I think I might actually die of shame right now!_**

"I'll get some dry sheets and see about the floor..." Carla trailed off as she turned away from the bed, struggling not to cry at Dr Cox's tone.

"Yeah, you do that." He grunted. "Oh and Carla, way to give our boy his dignity." Dr Cox said his voice low.

**_Is he__ talking about me? Dignity ...__what ... Christ, d__id I just wet myself? __I want to cry and this time__, opening my eyes wide,__ I do._**


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

_I think I'd have been happier that I'd managed to open my eyes if I hadn't felt so __absolutely __miserable at the precise moment it happened. I wasn't wallowing __in self pity __or anything but I think you have to agree with me that I was in a highly charged emotional situation. After all, something so terrible had happened to me tha__t I was left lying, immobile, on__ a hospital bed, unable to breathe or move unaided and my boss and best friends wife are having an argument over my naked __body_

_Oh yeah, I remember now why I opened my eyes, why I wanted to cry. He was yelling at her, being mean and in one sp__lit second I was__ transported back in time to step dad number whatever yelling at my mom after I'd wet the bed._

_T__hat particular childhood memory is making me__ feel like I've got all the emotional stability__ of a toddler right now and I desperately__ want to tell him to leave her alone. I can't though, my mouth's full of plastic and I can't move my hands to pull it out._

_Carla's gone now anyway__, she moved away from the bed and I can't turn__ my head so I don't know where she__ is__. I can only look __past the blurred outline of the ventilator tubing__, down my body towards__ Dr C__ox as he steps back into my field__ of vision._

_He's holding a new c__atheter kit__, pulling at the two layers of waxy paper enclosing it. The bits fall onto the foot of my bed. _

_It's weird watching him work when he doesn't know you're looking. He's totally engrossed in what he's doing as he pulls the thin tubing from its sterile cover. Totally engrossed __in... __what he's doing...what __is he doing? Oh, d__on'__t you dare! __That'__s a nurse's job, why the hell are you doing ...EEP!...__THAT!_

_D__r Cox has my peep in his hand and that is__ so NOT a sentence I thought I'd ever hear myself say. __Could I be any__more__...Ow__, God, does no one do anything gently with these __catheter __things...__ humiliated at this moment in time?_

Perry looked up as the door whooshed open.

"Scary nurse said you needed a mop in here." The Janitor said as he pushed the door open.

Dr Cox gave him a mean look. "Not right now jumpsuit. Five minutes." He barked, scowling at Carla as she pushed around the Janitor and back into the room with fresh sheets.

"OK.." The Janitor muttered and then gave a curt nod towards JD as he turned to leave. "Glad to see he's awake."

_That would be a yes._

_

* * *

_

Dr Wen asked Turk to do one final tour with the microscopic camera before declaring the operation a success. He knew they'd done a first class job but it never hurt to check the back door on your way out of the front as it were. He was about to request that Dr Turk close when he saw someone waving madly at the glass observation window. Clearing his throat he looked across at the surgeon in front of him.

"Dr Turk I was going to ask you if you'd close, however your wife is waiting for you it seems." He nodded towards the window behind Turk.

Turk hated being in this kind of position. Being a surgeon was exactly like being in part of the jock squad in high school, very macho and very rule dominated. One of the rules was not letting your ass get jerked around by your woman and not letting her get in the way of whatever you were doing or wanted to do. The problem was that while Turk was a surgeon in theory he was, in practice, a slave to his woman. And he was royally scared of her. His fear did nothing to help the conflict that brewed within him when he looked at his boss and tried to judge the correct response for this situation.

"Dr Wen, Sir, I think she'll understand that I need to finish up here." Turk replied smoothly as he sweated behind his mask.

"Well, she's pressing a note to the glass that has 'He's awake' written on it." Dr Wen replied calmly, without looking up from the open stomach beneath him.

"I'm outta here." And with that Dr Turk was gone.

* * *

"What happened, when did he...and is he..." Turk babbled as he tore the mask from his face and peeled the bloody gloves from his hands, flicking them deftly into the waste bin next to the sink. 

"Calm down. He opened his eyes about ten minutes ago. Dr Cox and I were in his room and we ...um...just noticed his eyes were open."

"Is he breathing?" Turk asked as he grabbed Carla's hand and tugged her down the corridor to the elevators.

"I don't know baby, I came straight to get you."

The elevator doors opened and Turk dragged Carla inside. Letting go of her hand he punched at the buttons two or three times as he bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. "Come on, come on" He muttered at the doors before they finally closed.

"This damn Elevator is so slow." He snapped.

"It's as fast as it's always been. You need to calm down." Carla rubbed Turks arm.

"And how do I do that, huh? Isn't this is the point where we find out how badly brain damaged our friend is? How can I be calm about that? Please, if you got some insight into this I'd love to hear it." He raised his brows at Carla as he waited for an answer.

"Why is it that everyone is taking their frustration out on me today?" She replied simply.

Turk suddenly looked sheepish. Closing his eyes for a moment he shook his head. "I'm sorry Carla, I didn't mean to be an ass, I'm just ... you know?"

"Scared."

He nodded and pulled his wife to his chest, his arms wrapping around her neck, "Yeah, scared." He was quiet for a moment, the whine of the elevator filling the tiny space. "So who else picked on you today, huh, 'cause I'll kick ass for you baby if you want me to."

Carla let out a tight laugh and pulled back from him as the doors slid open. "Don't worry about it. As soon as Elliot's out of her lecture she'll be on the receiving end of Dr Cox's wrath and I'll be safe again."

* * *

Perry shifted nervously as he tried to peer over Dr Schuler's shoulder. He was a great neurologist, there was no denying that, but the guy was the most taciturn man on the planet and that, coupled with the fact that he was built like a line backer meant that not only was Perry not being told anything he couldn't see anything either. 

Letting out an overly dramatic sigh he moved back to the foot of the bed and watched as the other medic flicked a pen light across JD's eyes. After a moment Dr Schuler muttered something and put the penlight back in his coat pocket. Shifting his weight he sat on the edge of the bed.

"Ok JD, I'm Dr Schuler and I'm gonna be taking care of that head injury of yours, OK?" He watched as his patients blue eyes swam lazily. "I'm gonna need your help though, can you help me JD?" He was hoping for a nod but it didn't come. "I know you can't talk with that vent in place but I wonder if you can blink to answer my questions, could you do that JD, maybe once for yes and twice for no."

_**This guy**__**'**__**s nice, kinda reminds me of Grandpa Dorian but not old and not dead. Of course I can blink for you**__**. Oh, I can't! No wait I'm sure I can blink... I can... but just not exactly when you want me to.**_

Perry made a disparaging noise and rolled his eyes. It was like a damn Hallmark movie for gods' sake, he thought irritably.

"Perry, you have some input on this?" Dr Schuler asked without turning. "I do realise you're thinking that this falls into every horribly clichéd, true life movie you ever saw but how else do you suggest Dr Dorian communicates? We'd love your input over here wouldn't we kid?"

Perry curled his lip at him but said nothing.

"Nothing? OK." Dr Schuler winked at JD.

_**Oooh**__**, he **__**totally **__**kicked your ass Dr Cox!**_

"Is your boss always this much of an ass?" Schuler asked JD. Hmm, nothing.

_**"YES!"**_

OK, let's work on that blinking thing later. I'm gonna do a couple of things now and you're gonna help, JD. I'm going to take your hand and I want you to push back against me as hard as you can." He pulled JD's arm up and laced their fingers, palms pressed together. He didn't have to push, he could tell immediately that there was no resistance at all. "That was real good champ, almost pushed me offa' the bed." His tone was gentle as he smiled at JD and dropped his hand lightly back at his side. "OK, now we're gonna make Dr Cox earn his pay check." He turned to Perry. "Think you can lift his leg and push against it?"

_**Don't encourage him to go back down there, please! **_

Perry scowled but threw back the blanket covering JD's legs and gently slid his hand under his right calf, lifting and pushing forward at the same time until JD's foot was flat against his stomach.

"Give him a good kick there kid, it'll be the only time you can get away with it." He smiled at JD.

_**I would love to and as you're the neurologist**__** and also the size of The Rock**__** that means you're the boss so here goes. Did I do anything? I can't really tell. I think I did. **__**Well, **__**I tried.**_

Perry's head dropped as he felt no reaction against his stomach at all. After a moment he gently lay JD's leg back down and covered him up.

Dr Schuler patted JD on the shoulder and stood up. "Good job kid. I'm outta here but I will definitely be back to see you!" He motioned to Perry to follow as he walked towards the door.

_**I'd like that.**_

_**

* * *

**_

_****_

"What's the score there Dr Hulk." Perry pressed as soon as he and Dr Schuler left the room.

"As always it's a pleasure to work with you Perry." He stopped when he saw a fleeting look of complete loss flicker across Perry's face. He leaned against the wall next to JD's door. "I'm really sorry Perry but there isn't much I can tell you at the moment. He woke up and that's good. His pupils are responsive, again good but as you saw back there he isn't registering any understanding of what's being said to him and he has no muscle control at all."

Perry shoved his hand through his hair.

"Don't let yourself get defeated Perry, this is the first step and you know it. It means nothing at all." He took a deep breath before carrying on. "There are lots of scenarios at play here, one that you must face is that JD isn't responding because there's been too much damage to his brain and this is as good as he will ever get," Dr Schuler paused as he felt Perry's hard stare fix him to the wall, "or, he can understand what's being said to him but has lost control over movement and hence can't respond, this could be something that is permanent or something that he has to learn to overcome. We just don't know at this stage."

Perry seemed to sag slightly against the wall but was still silent as Dr Schuler continued. "What we want to happen now is for his breathing to kick in. If and when that happens we'll know more." He patted Perry on the shoulder and set off down the hall.

"Schuler," Perry called after him. "Thanks."

"No problem." Came the reply.

He was about to head back into the room when he heard Carla's voice. The sound made him flinch as he remembered what a bastard he'd been towards her. Maybe she would forget he thought hopefully but one look at the expression on her face told him otherwise. Aagh, he knew he'd have to apologise but he couldn't do it in front of Ghandi. Maybe later. The thought of it made his stomach clench but not as hard as the thought of why he'd done it. Hell, the stupid catheter backing up wasn't just her fault or the nurses. Someone else had been in that room twice as often as she or anyone else had and that dumb son of a bitch hadn't noticed either and what really ate at his guts was that the dumb son of a bitch was him.

Suddenly Turks face was inches from his own.

"How is he?" He demanded, his breath short and sharp.

Perry held his hands up for him to back off.

"Calm down chocolate, yes, vanilla is awake but he's _just _awake, understand, nothing else has come back on line yet."

Turk furrowed his brow. "Plain English, please!"

He's awake but not responsive, which could mean all manner of crap, but _this_ is what we _are_ going to assume here people, we assume he _can_ hear us and is desperate to talk back. From now on every time we go in there we talk to him like evvv-erything is peachy, we explain everything that's being done to him, we make small talk about our boring lives, understand?" He raised his eyebrows in expectation and Carla and Turk nodded. "And by 'we' I of course don't mean me because I don't do small talk. I'll do the medical talk." He turned and pushed the door to JD's room without waiting for an answer.

* * *

_**I heard the door open but I can't see anyone. You'd think that whoever it is would realise that they might actually need to be in my fucking eye line! **__**Whoa**__**, I'm pissed! Where did that come from? **_

"Hey, vanilla bear." Turk crossed the room to the bedside and leaned over his friend.

_**Hey, SCB, oh I am so sorry for using the F word. I didn't know it was you.**_

"Glad to see you woke up, I was so scared man." Turk turned to Dr Cox, "His eyes are seriously spaced, like he can't focus or something."

**_Spaced! What the hell...I'd like to see you wake up with your peep in Dr Cox's hand and not feel spaced, you jerk! God if I could scream at you right now I damn well would! _**

**_Oh and hello again Mr Anger. _**

Carla stepped up behind Turk and rested her hands on his shoulders. "It's gonna take time baby." She soothed.

Turk leaned forward and pulled JD's hand towards him. Again he looked at Perry, "He's down for gastric peg surgery this afternoon. Are we still doing it or what?"

"I think we should re-schedule for tomorrow AM, don't you Ghandi? He just woke so I don't really want to pump him full of sedatives. Ideally, I'd rather wait a couple of days but he's had nothing but fluids for the last week and he's gonna need something else unless we want to deal with malnutrition as well as everything else."

**_They're going to stick a tube in my stomach. That's going to hurt, isn't it?_**

Turk nodded. "I'll speak to DR Wen about the schedule." Suddenly he pulled JD's hand up to his mouth and kissed the back of his fingers before lying it gently back at his side. "Gotta go cut people up man but I'll be back, I promise."

"I need to get back too. I don't think Dr Kelso will let us just look after this one patient all day." Carla smiled as she squeezed JD's hand.

**_Don't go._**

**_Please don't go, I won't be angry anymore, just ... please don't leave me alone._**

**_

* * *

_**

Perry unscrewed the cap from the whiskey bottle as he walked over to his couch with a squat glass tucked under one arm and the TV remote tucked under the other. Flopping onto the cushions and a particularly sharp toy of Jacks, he sighed and worked the remote until a game flashed up on the screen.

Once his entertainment was set he returned his attention to his drink, splashing a more than generous quantity of the golden liquid into his glass. Taking a mouthful he swished the liquid around his mouth and revelled in the slow burn of it as it trailed down his throat. Leaning his head back he closed his eyes and pressed the glass against his forehead. He was so absorbed he didn't hear Jordan gently closing the door to Jacks room before she padded over to the couch.

"Did' ya have a crappy day Per-Bear?" She sing-songed.

He nodded, smiling as she carried on. "Good. So did I. I went to another god awful Mommy and Me group and met a cow of a woman who taunted me and my ability to parent via my child." Perry sat forward and looked at Jordan somewhat disbelievingly. "It's true," she continued, "I took out Jacks bottle and she asked_ him_, yes, asked our _small baby_, if 'Mommy didn't breast feed'. I was of course compelled to point out that he is too young to talk yet but when he can he'll be sure to point out that dressing in dungarees to match your baby isn't cute if you're the size of the local Wal-Mart."

Perry laughed. "That's my girl."

She smiled at him. "Why did your day suck?"

He shook his head. "The usual, Kelso the Anti-Christ, dumb interns that have no business playing doctor let alone trying to _be_ doctors, crappy coffee and Newbie woke up and can't move or breathe or even damn well blink." He felt his throat tighten as he leaned forward to snag the bottle from the coffee table.

Jordan looked at him for a moment before she curled her legs up beneath her and draped her arm around his shoulders, pulling him, bottle and glass into a half hug that she cut off after a minute. "You did say he was too annoying. This way he'll talk less." She said simply, before giving him a quick perfunctory kiss on his forehead.

He nodded. "Every cloud ... and all that, huh?"

She nodded back. "Would it be too horribly Oprah of me to actually ask how you feel about all this?"

Perry laughed as he threw back another glass full. "I just wish I didn't feel so fucking accepting of what's happened. That's not me is it? I mean come on, when have I ever been accepting?" He sighed and poured another shot. "I just feel so out of control when I don't have anger to focus me, like I'm one of those little kids toys that you can just push and push and push and it never falls down. I want to fall down Jordan, I want to get so fucking angry at someone that I fall down and don't get up. But there's no one to be angry with, is there? No one to stare in the face and blame."

* * *

_I wonder what time it is._

_I think it must be late because everything kinda down shifted in its pace, if that makes sense. Things got quieter and that bit calmer. _

_Turk and Carla got off their shift and both came to say goodbye. It was weird. I'm usually with them or know I'll be catching them later at the bar or at home but now I'm just stuck here, existing in this weird, timeless Sacred Heart limbo._

_Elliot was here but to be honest I'm glad she's gone. That doesn't sound nice, I know, but she just kept crying and I really can't deal with that right now. It makes me feel like I should make her feel better but I can't do anything, oh apart from my amazing new ability to pee in a plastic bag. And that's hardly unique, Mr Gruber down the hall has been doing it for the last four years. If we had a club he'd be the chairman._

_Anyway, Elliot went home after a lot of apologising for needing to go home. I tried to make my eyes scream the message 'Just leave already!' but I don't think it worked. In fact I was having trouble focusing on her for a while. I felt like my eyes kept wandering off somewhere. I only felt my attention snapping back to her when she kissed me. It was funny, she kissed the corner of my mouth right up to the vent tube as if she was trying to get as close to my lips as she could. I could smell her shampoo. It was like lemons._

_Her visit did do one good thing though, it made Mr Angry go away but on the down side he left behind his friend Mr Miserable Bastard and man is he ever a miserable bastard! He made me feel like crying once Elliot had left but the tears wouldn't come. I'm glad. I don't want to do what he says! Hah, so in your face Mr Miserable Bastard._

_I wish I felt tired. This is so boring just lying here, listening to the ventilator and counting ceiling tiles. Especially when I can only seem to count up to five before I forget where I am. _

_It's boring and lonely. _

_I wish I had someone to talk to, oh and that they could hear me..._

"Hey, Scooter." A voice called from the doorway.

_Crap! Stupid wishes. _

_Can I make a new wish that has a caveat to it like this; I wish I had someone to talk to that wasn't the Janitor!_


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

"You do know that you didn't have to go this far to stop me from playing with you, don't you?"

_**What?**_

The janitor stared down at JD for a minute before he carried on. "Alright Scooter, I'm gonna tell you what we're gonna do. We're gonna have a little time out here, not permanent or anything but just as long as you need it." He sniffed and tapped his mop on the floor a couple of times. "_But_, and I stress the word _but, _you pull anything like this again and I will not be as lenient, understand."

He stared at JD and JD stared back up at him. "And next time if you need a break just ask for one, I'm not an ogre. I'd think about it, consult with the guys, we'd take a vote and then I'd decide if it was OK."

_**Ah, true democracy.**_

After another loud sniff he spun around, dragged a chair up to JD's bed and dumped himself down into it, stretching his long legs out in front of him and sliding down until he was comfy.

JD blinked slowly.

_**Are you actually making yourself comfortable? Do you not have anything to mop?**__** I could try really**__** hard to pee on the floor again if that would get rid of you.**_

"What? I am allowed breaks you know and you _are_ in my official break room." He furrowed his brow at JD. "Don't look at me like that." He muttered as he dug into one of the pockets of his jumpsuit pulling out a small rectangular box. He fiddled with it, pointing it high up at the TV mounted on the wall.

_**I'**__**m not **__**looking at you, you lunatic! I'm staring at the ceiling like I have been doing for the last god knows how long!**_

"Don't tell anyone you saw this." He waved the box directly over JD's face.

_**Oh, of course I'm going too. It'll be the first thing out of my mouth right after I figure out how to breathe again! Are you actually insane?!**_

"I can control nearly everything mechanical in this place with this one box. I tell ya, it'll do all the TV's, Dr Kelso's car alarm and even triggers an automatic sluice of all the urinals on the ground floor. I've caught a few with that." He smiled fondly. "It's one hell of a doo-hickey."

**_You know__ come to think of it,__ I've gotten wet pants __i__n the ground floor__ men's room__ more than __once ..._**

He flicked channels searching for something to watch. "I trust ya. I know you won't tell anyone especially as I can control that breathing thingy with it too." He nodded at JD. "Seriously, it's mechanical, right?"

_Oh God, h__e's kidding, isn't he?_

The Janitor leaned back and settled in to watch the TV. "Ah, wrestling! You know, it's Tuesday and on a Tuesday night it's a four hour special!"

_Oh great__ I'm trapped with the second scariest individual in the hospital and he's decided to spend his break time with me! __Aagh__, did I wrong someone in a previous life or ... wait, he's sitting in here on his break? Huh._

_

* * *

_

Perry ran his hand through Jordan's hair and she shifted her body slightly, the side of her face pressing lightly against his chest. He let the silky strands run through his fingers before brushing them down the back of her neck until they traced the curve of her shoulder.

"If I was a poodle I might actually like that bit of impromptu petting Per." She mumbled sleepily, shifting her feet in the tangle of bed clothes.

He smiled and brought his hand back up to ruffle her hair into a mess.

"Thanks." She mumbled again as she pushed herself up to look at him. "I'd like to think that you were gazing at me in adoration while I slept ...wait, no, that would be creepy. What are you doing still awake. It's 2 am."

"Thinking."

"You're right. I _was_ incredible and it does deserve more than a quick ponder, but it is _so_ late and I have to drag myself to your hell hole for a meeting at 9am!" She whined.

"What am I gonna do Jordan?" Perry looked at Jordan so helplessly that she was momentarily unsure of what to say.

"About what?" She asked, her face showing her confusion.

"About Alice! Who else?"

Jordan shook her head, confusion still flooding her mind. "DJ?"

"They all look at me like I know what to do and I don't, I don't have all the answers, Jordan, I just ...don't. What's worse is that when I catch sight of my sorry face in a mirror these days even _I_ look at me like I should have all the answers!"

Jordan gave his hand a quick squeeze. "You already know what you're going to do Per, you just haven't realised it yet."

He raised his eyebrows at her as she continued.

"Answers or not, you're going to go headfirst into the fight everyday and put your all into that one patient because you believe that he's worth it, unlike 90 percent of the patients who get turfed your way you know you might actually win this one, _if_ you give him everything you've got. You do it all the time Perry. You tick along for a while doing the same old same old and then you get tossed one that you know you can save and I say hello to the nights alone and breakfast for one. Then you send them on their way and I get my crappy husband back. Until the next time."

He gave her a long look. "You're right." He replied huskily. "I am a crappy husband and I _know_ I can get him back, just like I know in my gut every time I can get someone back, even against the shitty odds they've been dealt, but I'm not usually afraid Jordan, and this time ... I'm afraid." He pressed his finger tips into his eyes and scrubbed at them.

"Yeah, that'll be that annoying '_DJ's actually your friend and you like him'_ thing kicking in."

She stared at him as he looked at her from between his fingers. "It kinda crept up on you didn't it, Per?"

* * *

_I wish I knew what time it was. _

_I think it must be really late, or really early, depending on your point of view because the hospital vibe just took another dip, like it stood down a notch again and the lights got even dimmer and the halls even quieter. I know they got quieter because the door to my room is open and I can hear people as they walk past._

_Mostly their footsteps are quick, especially when there's a code called and__ then __I can hear three or four sets of steps running down the hall and I think of how it would have been me running if I wasn't stuck here, like this. As time wears on though the footsteps loose that pace and calm down a little, or maybe the owners of the steps just got tired, maybe they're at the end of an eighteen hour shift._

_I can't remember my last eighteen hour shift, or much else for that matter. I don't mean basic stuff like how to place an IV or __do CPR__. I can remember that stuff. Even if I can't figure out how to take a breath I still have all that junk rattling about in my head. That must be a good thing,__ surely?__ At least the one hundred and thirty grand's worth of tuition hasn't been __smooshed__ out of my brain. _

_Suddenly, almost idly__ a thought pops into my head; I wonder __**what**__ did the __smooshing_

_I don't like the way I feel when I thin__k about that so I stop and try to think about more positive stuff like what I can remember._

_I can remember Carla and Turks wedding and I can remember snippets of hospital stuff, like Todd weirdly asking if I wanted to room with him while Turk was away and Dr Cox yelling at me about a patient. Wait, is that right? Was he yellin__g at me or was I yelling at him? __I don'__t know.__ I think I might have yelled at him, huh! Also I remember Elliot. Elliot and the supply closet, but after that, nothing, nada, zip._

_I don'__t like that nothingness, that__ intangible black hole lurking at the back of my skull. It's like falling and not being able to see the ground rushing up at you__ so I step back and stop thinking about it._

_I like to think about Elliot and the supply closet though__. I'm not sure why __we we__re in there or even how long ago it was__ but it was nice, surprisingly nice. Elliot is usually so reserved, __often __verging on icy, but sometimes, just sometimes she really throws down and surprises you, and this was one of those times._

_I can remember her pushing me up against the back wall, the shelves really digging into my back and I was going to say something manly like '__Owie__' but as I opened my mouth she pressed hers against me and twirled her tongue around._

_It was tickly and __a little __alarming because Elliot doesn't __usually __go in for __kissing of the French style. It's a more Germanic a__pproach she uses, a more abrupt 'kissing you now and you __**will**__ do it back, __danke __schon!'_

_I don't know what was different at that moment but she was the most open I'd ever known __her._

_I can almost feel how she pushed my scrubs top up and slid her fingers around the top of my pants, letting them rest in the small of my back, I can feel the little shi__ver it gave me all down my body, my stomach clenching as the __swinging __end of her stethoscope made contact with my bare skin.__ And then after what seemed like an eternity of her lips against mine I felt a smile flutter against me and her hand sliding down to find its way into my shorts._

_She laughed then, as if she was more surprised than I was. She laughed and I could suddenly taste lip balm, all raspberry and Elliot mixed into one delicious flavour. She laughed and at that moment I __**truly**__ fell in love with her._

_It wasn't that I wasn't already in love with her but that was the moment in time that sealed the deal for me, made me want her, made her the one thing I couldn't do without, made me susceptible to everything that could go wrong. That was the moment I became truly vulnerable._

_I closed my eyes for a moment__, trying to stop my chest from heaving under the strain of __forcing__ my tears to stop before they started. __I squeezed my eyelids tight, wishing I hadn't willed her to go home, wishing she had stayed and curled up in the chair next to my bed._

_I don't want to cry again, I'm not sure I would be able to stop. _

_Suddenly my chest feels funny and my stomach clenches, it's like a weight flattening me and I want to gasp out but I can't and then it happens again and again, three times in quick succession as if I'__m about to wretch, __not low__ down in my stomach but high up__ in my chest. __I feel panicky and want to flail my arms like a drowning man, t__hen as suddenly as it started it__ goes__ and on__c__e again I'm aware of the steady whoosh of the ventilator pump and someone standing beside me._

_Someone fiddling with his pocket, a tissue, he's pulling out a tissue._

"You OK, Scooter?" The janitor asked as he quickly wiped the damp streak from the side of JD's face before it snaked its way into his ear.

_**No**__**, I don't think I am.**_

"Hey, you blinked. Twice. Are we doing that whole blink once for yes and twice for no thing?" He stood back and grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl on the bedside table. Taking a huge bite he raised his eyebrows in expectation.

_I did, I blinked twice when I thought 'No'. I can communicate! Ha, in your face Dr Cox. Dr Rock was right about me, I am the champ! Blink again JD, blink once for "yes!"__ I did it I blinked!_

"Cool." The janitor took another bite of his apple. "So, I guess we can be done with the whole time out thing now, right?"

_Crap._

* * *

"Carla, I really can't talk about this right now, OK." Turk sighed as he rolled out of bed and grabbed his boxers from the floor. "I gotta shower and be ready to leave in thirty minutes and what's more, so do you." 

Carla leaned across the bed and made an unsuccessful swipe after her husbands' retreating back. "I just wanted a little good morning cuddle." She pouted as she heard the shower start to run. "No such luck." She muttered under her breath.

"Are you muttering under all that hair?" She suddenly heard his voice and looked up.

"I thought you were in the shower."

"Needed a clean towel." He nodded towards the chest of drawers. "I'm not avoiding this Carla, I just can't focus on it right now, not with all this stuff going on."

"I'm not asking you to focus Turk, I'm asking you for sex which I know requires a little attention at some points but you mostly go glassy eyed during it anyway."

Turk shook his head. "You know what I'm talking about." He dragged a towel from one of the drawers.

Carla sat up on her heels and pulled the quilt around her shoulders. "Yes, I do. I'm talking about getting started on what we agreed on our honeymoon, remember, our family? You do remember agreeing to start a family right?"

"You know I did, I just can't ...it's too complicated ..."

"No Turk it's not. We have sex, we wait a month to see if we're pregnant. It's been that simple for thousands of years." She paused and looked at her husband who had slumped onto the bed. "You're making it complicated because of Bambi, you want this to be fixed so we can start on the baby chapter of our lives without a shadow hanging over us but news flash Turk, this may never be fixed, _he_ may never be fixed and I don't want to wait around for this. We have to carry on with our lives."

"Yeah, well you carry on with our lives. I gotta get myself in the right frame of mind for the first surgery I got scheduled today, you know the one where I cut into my friends' stomach and stitch a gastric peg into him so he doesn't starve to death." With that he walked out of the bedroom, slamming the door behind him.

"Nice going girl." Carla said to herself as she took a deep breath.

* * *

_I must have fallen asleep at some point because when I woke up it was bright in my room. The sunlight was across my chest and I could feel the warmth like I was lying on a beach somewhere. It would have been nice if I hadn't felt that same panicky feeling I'd had in the night. You see when I woke up it was because of that weird feeling in my chest and stomach again, only this time it lasted a little longer and now I feel shaken and clammy with anxiety. But soon there's a cool hand on the side of my face and I open my eyes._

"Hey, good morning sleepy head." Elliot leaned over and kissed the side of JD's face.

_Oh, you look like an angel!_

Elliot took a step back and threaded her fingers through his. "I came in early to say good morning before my shift and before you go into surgery."

_**Surgery?**__** What **__**surgery,**__** is this something I knew about?**_

"You shouldn't worry, Turk and Dr Wen are doing it and you'll be fine. I'll try to be there when you wake up, OK?"

_I blinked once for yes, did she notice?__ I guess not. _

Elliot darted over to the chair and grabbed up her back pack, rummaging inside for something. "I brought this for you, I thought it might help to ..you know...for you to listen to something.." Triumphantly she pulled JD's I-Pod out and waved it over his face.

_Hey, my I-Pod. I thought it broke when I dropped it... __woah__, my head is really swimming all of a sudden...wait, where did that come from, when did I drop it? I can't quite remember but I know I dropped it. I think._

Elliot flopped into the chair and fiddled with the I-Pod before she slid it under JD's hand, gently curling his fingers around it.

"I'm sorry about last night, all the crying and stuff. I just ...well, I'm sorry."

_**No, I'm sorry Elliot I really didn't want you to leave, I was being a jerk.**_

"I guess I was just being my usual self, which is really annoying because my mom is always saying 'just don't be your usual self Elliot' and then I always am." She looked downcast and then changed the subject. "You look a little better today, more focused." Her face crinkled a little as if she was thinking.

_**Yes, Elliot I am more focused, that's why I just blinked, you know, once for yes! Could you try to notice, or ask me a question even!**_

Suddenly Elliot shook her head a little as if trying to clear her mind. "Ah, Dr Cox says we need to talk to you like we normally would, you know. Include you in everything we're doing and tell you what's happening. Anyway, I'm sure Turk will fill you in on the surgery so I'll bore you with yesterdays' rounds, let's see, oh yeah, Mr Harris was back..."

**_No! Elliot, look at me, properly, please...just ask me a question, even one about your hair, I don't care, just ask me something!_**

"... you should have seen what we pulled out of his ass, I swear, we had to get a bigger ass box."

**_Please, God, send someone in who will actually LOOK AT ME._**

**_

* * *

_**

_**A/N** – Firstly, I wanted to say a very sincere thank you to everyone who has taken the time to review and/or add the story to their alert! It helps me keep writing and better still it helps to kick the butt of my ever present inferiority complex._

_Secondly, I thought I should give you guys a heads up and warn you that this story is more of a marathon than a sprint - it will be a long one! I hope that doesn't put too many of you off and that you will stay with me until this particular muse has stopped running circles around my head._


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

_Elliot's still talking. _

_I've never noticed before but__ when she's telling you something she really is totally absorbed in what she's saying and nothing distracts her. I think I could pull the vent tube out of my mouth and jump up off the bed and she wouldn't notice. She looks pretty though, and sounds pretty. I'm too tired to listen to her properly but just the sound of her voice is good at the moment._

_I wish I knew what time it was. __B__ut more than that__ I wish __I c__ould __**stop**__ wishing I knew what goddamn time it was! That thought keep__s__ creeping into my head and it's driving me nuts. What does it matter what time it is? Am I late? Do I have a pressing appointment?_

_Hey, something's happening. Elliot's talking to someone, she's standing up._

"Hey man, how you doing?" Turk moved to the foot of JD's bed, closely followed by Dr Wen, and grabbed up the chart. After a minute checking the vitals that had been taken over night he passed the chart to the other surgeon.

_**Oh, I guess I do have an appointment. Hey Turk, I can talk to you if you ask me a question, oh and it helps if you look at me when you do.**_

Turk moved further up the bed and took JD's hand in his, looking over at Elliot he began to speak. "He does look a little more alert." He turned his attention back to JD. "We're gonna take you for a little trip down to the OR, OK, but you have nothing to worry about 'cause I'm gonna be with you all the way."

**_I b__linked once SCB, did you notice?__ It's supposed to be for __'__yes__'__ but I'm trying it out for __'__OK__'__ as well._**

Dr Wen moved to JD's side and lifted his gown so he could mark for the incision.

_**Ah, tickles.**_

"Elliot, d'you get the feeling he understands what's going on or what we're saying?"

_**Yes, see, the single blink! God, I love you Chocolate Bear but you are really slow sometimes.**_

Turk looked directly into JD's eyes. "Are you with me buddy, blink if you ..."

"Hey, Ghandi!" Dr Cox huffed his way into the room noisily making Elliot jump and Turk scowl in his direction. "I thought I made it clear that you had to wait for Daddy before you could go out and play with your little friend."

**_No, Turk, look at me! Please, you asked me something ...please...just...__ Percival__ Cox, I have never __been as mad at__ you __as I am__ right now!_**

"Yeah, well you're five minutes late, Dr Cox." Turk replied evenly.

"Well forgive me oh benevolent one, but I have _other patients_." Dr Cox scowled, angry at himself for not being on time. "You know, when you're lucky enough to be in internal medicine you have to actually _talk to your patients_, not just slice and dice 'em. Sometimes, I'm even expected to know their names!" Dr Cox let out a mock shriek and held his hand up to his mouth. "I know it is sho-ho-hocking, isn't it? You see I just can't get away with calling them things like 'Hernia Guy' or 'Appendix Kid', which reminds me we really must come up with a good name for Judy here for you scalpel jocks to remember him by. We need something snappy like 'Gomer' but he's not in his nineties so wait, how about Jr Gomer?"

Turk crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared at Dr Cox for a moment before turning to Dr Wen. "I'm gonna go scrub up." He moved towards the door, stopping right in front of Perry.

"If I didn't need these hands to be good today I swear to God I'd punch you in the face." With that he left.

Perry closed his eyes for a second before turning to Elliot. "Barbie, go get a porter while I take care of this pre-med."

Elliot nodded and scurried out of the room, keeping her eyes to the floor so Dr Cox wouldn't see her cry.

Suddenly Perry felt a strong hand on his shoulder. Turning he saw Dr Wen sporting a wry smile. "Good to see you never change Perry." After another firm pat he left the room.

Perry fingered the IV tube before he slid the pre-med needle into the junction and depressed the plunger. He'd never felt a bigger jackass than he did right now and that was saying something. Why the hell did he always take out the anger he felt toward himself on other people, people who didn't deserve it. Why couldn't he just say 'Ghandi, you're right, I'm late 'cause Jack's got a stomach bug and he puked on me just as I was about to leave the apartment.' Why couldn't he be anything less than super doc? Why couldn't he let himself be weak?

Gritting his teeth he looked down at JD. Maybe he could be a little weak, just for a second. No one else was in the room, well no one who could tell anyways.

"You hang in there, you here Suzie. We're gonna get this gastric peg in and then we can make sure you get some nutrition inside you, and hey, the good thing is that it'll be better than the cafeteria stuff." He tried to be light hearted but could quite pull it off. He hesitated for a moment before continuing. "I didn't mean the Jr Gomer thing. You know that, right Newbie?"

_**I know, but it was still mean. You're always mean.**_

"I'll be here when you get back."

_Ah, pre-m__ed... Ooh m__y eyes are slippery._

_Is my bed moving?_

_I'm done._

* * *

Elliot stood by the nurse's station cradling a cup of hot chocolate Laverne had made for her. She was steadfastly refusing to acknowledge Dr Cox who had come to stand next to her while he asked Carla to find some of his charts. 

"Carla, these are the wrong charts." He said holding them back out to her.

She shook her head in irritation. "Sorry. Just thinking about stuff."

"JD?" Elliot asked.

"Yeah, and other stuff." She replied simply.

Perry stole a quick glance at her from under his eyebrows. "It's a simple procedure, he'll be fine."

"Oh, is this the warm and fuzzy moment where you actually give a crap that's supposed to counteract the moment of _pure jerk_ back in JD's room?" Elliot snapped, finally looking up at him.

"Barbie? Do you really want to pick a fight, 'cause I don't, but I never like to disappoint a lady."

"Cut it out, both of you. I'm not in the mood." Carla slammed the charts onto the counter and gave them both a warning look.

Elliot's brow crinkled. "I just wish I knew if he understood what's happening. I mean it's stupid because a part of me thinks that if he knows what's going on but can't do anything that's worse than if he doesn't so then I feel guilty for wanting him to ..." Elliot took a huge gasping breath.

"Elliot, breathe, honey." Carla soothed. "I wish I could tell you he understands but we just don't know right now."

"I do." A new voice cut in commanding everyone's attention.

Dr Cox turned to look in the direction of the voice. "Jumpsuit? Did you mutter something over there?"

"Yeah, I said 'I do' as in 'I do know if Scooter understands what's happening to him', and the answer is yes."

"And how is it that you know this, Mop Jockey?" Perry questioned.

"I sat with him last night and we had this whole blink once for yes thing going on. It was kinda cool, a real bonding moment for us."

"And you didn't think to point this out to anyone?" Perry shook his head in amazement.

The Janitor considered what Perry had said for a moment. "Gee, no, I didn't, and I know exactly how disappointed you feel because I ran low on ammonia just this very morning and none of you doc's thought to mention it to me, hmm."

Suddenly Dr Cox grabbed the mop the Janitor was twisting in his hands, holding it still against the Janitors chest. "This isn't a joke jolly green, now are ya talking out of your mop bucket or is this on the level?"

"On the level. Maybe if you stopped fiddling with all your charts and machines for a second and actually looked at him you might know what was going on."

The janitor pulled the mop back out of Perry's hands and worked it along the floor as he moved away. "Next time I'll write my findings up on his chart." Saluting Dr Cox he wandered back down the hall.

* * *

Turk pulled off his doo-rag and dropped it onto the side of the sink. Leaning forward he turned the faucet and held his hands under the steady stream of hot water. 

Placing a G-Tube wasn't a long procedure, in fact they had almost beaten their record of eighteen minutes and would have done if Todd hadn't knocked over a tray of instruments and been kicked out by Dr Wen, but even though it was short, Turk felt as though he had been operating for hours he was so wiped out. He knew it was a simple case of mental fatigue but that didn't make him feel any better.

In practice the surgery had gone well. The incision was small enough and they'd done a really tidy job but the sight of that tube, sutured tightly into place, erupting from an inflamed spot on JD's pale abdomen made Turk feel more than a little queasy. He didn't know why, he'd definitely seen worse.

With a jolt he realised that the water was burning his hands. Quickly he pulled back and grabbed up a fist full of paper towels, drying his hands off before tossing the towels into the trash.

Quietly he made his way into the recovery room. JD was lying on a bed in the far corner of the room. The lights were dimmed as usual and all Turk could hear was the rhythmic whooshing of the ventilator pump and the conflicting beeps of the heart and pulse-ox monitors. Slowly he crossed over to the bedside.

JD looked a little clammy, a sheen of perspiration covering his forehead.

"Don't you go getting an infection on me now Vanilla. You know Dr Cox will ream my ass if you do." He smiled a little, faltering after a moment.

"I could really do with you right now man. Carla's on my back about starting a family and all I want to do is have some down time with you, Rowdy and the Gilmore Girls." He took a deep breath. "I told her I couldn't think about it because of you, yeah I know, I shouldn't have done that but you gotta admit you're a damn good excuse for a lotta' stuff getting neglected at the moment." He raised his hand, brushing a couple of limp strands of dark hair away from JD's forehead.

"You are gonna be seriously pissed when you see what they did to your hair." He wiped a single tear away from his eye. "Damn."

_Hmm__? What happened to my hair? __Oh, I feel weird. Kinda sick..._

_Aagh, t__he side of m__y stomach is burning.__ It hurts like hell every time __the vent makes me breathe in__. Good job I__'m __a pro at __keep__ing __really still__ at the __moment...__Oh no,__ not that again__, not now..._

"I just want you to know that I love you man and I really don't wanna have to see you like this for the rest of my life and I really need to talk to you about this baby thing." Another tear trickled down Turks face. He swiped it away angrily. "Shit, I need to get in control, don't I?" He laughed shakily. "Carla sees me cryin' and she's gonna think I killed your ass on that table."

_That horrible feeling is back. __My chest is heaving again, __my__ throat __contractin__g against the vent tube, Oh God__ it's making my stomach clench ...Christ that hurts, it hurts so much I... Oh please Turk make it stop... I just want to...what, what do I want to do? Hurl, cough what? That's it. I want to cough. I have to cough. _

Turk was still swiping at the tears with the hem of his scrubs top when he heard the ventilator beep, once, twice and again.

_I have to get this tube out, it's not working right, it can't be__ I can__'t__ breathe properly! I have to __pull it out...have to.__...uh...move...MOVE MY FUCKING HAND ..NOW!_

Turk was about to lean across JD and check the stats on the ventilator when JD's left hand shot out to the side and connected hard with the metal of the bed rail and then continued to flail wildly, ricocheting from the rail to the mattress and back again.

Quickly Turk pressed JD's hand against the mattress.

"JD can you hear me? It's Turk, can you hear me man?" A wave of relief greater than anything he had felt before washed over Turk as JD's eyelids fluttered open and his blue eyes stared up at him.

His relief was short lived though when he recognised the look in them as one of pure anguish as JD tried desperately to cough around the wide plastic tube.

* * *

Perry ran down the corridor as fast as he could, avoiding the occasional wheelchair and mop bucket as he went before skidding to a halt in front of the elevators. Impatiently he jabbed at the metal button before deciding that waiting two seconds for a response was two seconds too long. 

He turned and strode over to the door to the stairwell and slammed the flat of his hand against the wood, making it swing back and crash into the wall behind it. Less than a minute later he was emerging from the corresponding door one flight up, his leg muscles burning from taking the steps two at a time.

Ghandi had paged him. That simple sentence kept reeling through his brain like a news feed. Ghandi had paged him.

'Recovery room. Urgent.'

God help him if this didn't fall within _his_ definition of urgent because for the first time in his life Perry had begun to seriously consider that the massive shots of adrenalin that this hell hole caused to flood into his system on a daily basis just might kill him.

Something must be wrong; it had to be didn't it? Why else would he page? It's a simple procedure, his own words to Barbie, _a simple procedure_.

As he neared the doorway to the recovery room a nurse darted ahead of him and he could hear staccato voices within the room. It was then that he faltered. It was like he'd stepped in gum and couldn't lift his feet.

What if?

What if Newbie hadn't hung in there, like he'd asked?

What if he were gone?

Perry felt his mouth grow dry as he paused, his heart racing. 'Get a grip you goddamn pansy' he said to himself, 'Get a grip.'

With that he forced himself to carry on into the room.

He almost laughed when he got in there. Not because the scene that greeted him was funny, in fact it was anything but funny, but the kid wasn't dead and Perry had never felt such relief.

The bed had been raised into a more upright position and a nurse was sitting on the edge of the mattress on JD's left, her hands firmly on his shoulders as Turk and another nurse started to disconnect the ventilator, the pump letting down its last blast of air before they could remove the tube.

"Scoot." Perry snapped at the nurse on the bed. "I'll take over now." He planted himself next to JD, grimacing inwardly at the horrible gasping noises JD was making around the tube, his eyes watering, his face flushed.

"Just one second kid, you know the drill, we need one big cough, m'kay?"

**_Oh, just pull it out please...I think I need to throw up.__...please, please, please..._**

"On three Newbie, one, two, three." Perry quickly drew the vent tube forward out of JD's mouth as JD gagged and coughed against it, tears running freely down his face.

"Slow down there Janine, even breaths now." Dr Cox soothed as JD gasped at the air.

**_I'm gonna be sick.__ Dr Cox, you should really move._**

JD tried to push Dr Cox away with his left hand but it fell, thudding limply against Perry's leg before slidding off onto the bed.

_My arm feels __weird;__ like I slept on it...it won't do what I want, what the hell is wrong? Why can't I...__my other arm won't move...__aaghh...WHY DOESN'T ANYTHING WORK, WHY DONT I WORK!_

"JD, stay calm brother." Turk placed his hand gently on JD's, his face worried. He looked up at Perry. "Should we get restraints? If that G-Tube dislodges he could wind up with peritonitis."

**_I need to t__ell him, tell Turk what'__s wrong, that I __can'__t move my__ arm...and... and..._**

JD opened his mouth to speak but all he could manage was an undecipherable sound which made Turk and Dr Cox exchange frowns.

_What is that __awful __noise? Is that __me;__is that what I sound like?_

Dr Cox pressed JD gently back against the bed and put the flat of his hand on the side of his face, eyes locked with his.

"Newbie, listen to me, calm down. Everything's gonna be ok, hard part's over, we got ya now."

Suddenly JD lurched forward and unceremoniously covered the front of Perry's hockey shirt in bile.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

"I guess someone should call Dan." Carla said as she played with the limp salad that decorated most of her plate.

Suddenly Elliot let out a low moan and let her head fall with a bump to the surface of the cafeteria table.

"What did I say?" Carla quizzed her husband who was seated opposite them. Turk looked back at her and shrugged.

"It's not the calling him Carla, it's what he'll do when he gets here." She gave them a plaintive stare as Carla screwed her face up in confusion.

Elliot blew her bangs out of her face and carried on. "When he came up before, after the cops called him, he planted himself in JD's room and never left, four days he was there!"

"Elliot that's perfectly normal behaviour for a family member, you know that. I don't understand wha..." Carla didn't finish before Elliot cut her off.

"No Carla, people _say_ things like _'I never left his bed side for a single moment!' _but they don't mean literally – well I do in Dan's case. He sat there and didn't move he didn't wash, change, eat unless it was brought to him and he even started using the call button to get the nurses to bring him hand held urinals for him to pee into."

Carla and Turk both grimaced.

"Oh yeah," She nodded emphatically, blowing another rogue strand from her face. "and the other, I think he just held it in. It was not pleasant to be in that room pretty much after day one. Anyway he'd still be there now if Dr Cox hadn't convinced him there was nothing he could do, oh and if his boss hadn't called and threatened to sack him."

Turk rubbed his eyes and huffed. "We still gotta call him." With that he pushed himself up from his chair and stretched. "Dr Schuler must be done by now, you guys coming?"

* * *

Dr Schuler stepped into JD's room and closed the door, effectively blocking out the distracting noises of the hallway and the gaze of the Janitor, who stood mopping the same square of floor tiles while he craned his neck, trying to see into the room. Turning, he smiled towards Perry who was leaning against the wall with JD's chart in his hand. 

"No fever," Perry said simply. "I'm thinking the vomiting was down to the sedative he was given for the surgery, it's not uncommon, either that or the body's reaction to starting to breathe alone again. It can be pretty traumatic."

"As long as we've ruled out infection I'm happy, we really don't want any setbacks at this stage." Dr Schuler bit his lower lip thoughtfully. "You say he hasn't spoken at all?"

"Right after we took the vent tube out he did but it was hard to tell what he was trying to say and since then, nothing." Dr Cox flicked the side of his nose and shifted his feet.

"OK, that's not unusual." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "I prefer to keep patients with this type of injury in the loop, if their family members or friends think they would cope well with it. How d'you think he'll be if we lay this on the line for him?"

"He's a smart kid and he's put up with me for the last three years so he's definitely tough." Perry took a deep breath and blew it out again. "I think he'd hate to not know what was happening to him." He nodded, trying to convince himself that he was right.

"Alright. Let's do it." Dr Schuler turned back to the bed and moved to sit on the side of it, Dr Cox moving up to stand behind him.

"So, Dr Dorian, word on the street is that you've been doing things without me!" Dr Schuler gently admonished as he pushed hard against JD's left hand, smiling as he felt a firm push back. "Good, that's really good kid. Now let's see what we got in my box of tricks shall we?" He placed JD's hand gently on the over bed table in front of him and bent down to reach into the box he had brought into the room. Straightening he placed an object in front of JD.

Dr Schuler picked the object up and then rolled it on the table top under the flat of his palm. "I want you to try to hold the ball in your right hand." He told JD firmly.

_**I'll try, it's just a ball right, I can hold a ball.**_

JD swallowed hard and stared at the doctor in front of him.

"I'll help you." Dr Schuler said calmly, taking JD's right hand from where it lay on the table top and curling it around the ball. Gently he squeezed JD's fingers around the sphere. "Can you keep hold of it for me?" Slowly he released JD's hand.

Perry closed his eyes as the ball immediately rolled away from JD only to be caught by Dr Schuler before it rolled off the table.

_**Oh...**_

"OK, let's try the left." Schuler said, seemingly unaffected by JD's failure to grasp the ball. "I'm not gonna help this time because I've been told that you can move this baby." He smiled at JD.

_**I **__**don't think I can, I want **__**to but...**_

"Come on. Just give it your best shot. It'll be hard but I want you to really try."

JD closed his eyes and drew a shaky breath inward.

"How about you try it for Dr Cox here?" Dr Schuler persuaded, raising his eyebrows.

Perry let out a mirthless laugh. "He's never gonna do it now." He said, knowing the exact opposite was true as JD's eyes flickered angrily at him.

_**Even h**__**e thinks I can't do it.**__** He thinks I'll just give up.**_

Perry stared as JD glanced between the ball and his hand. After a moment JD's left arm jerked erratically forward, his hand reaching toward the ball. It was almost too painful for Dr Cox to watch as he tried to stretch out his faltering fingers, a look of momentous effort etched on his face, small beads of sweat glistening on his forehead. Perry's jaw twitched as he suppressed the urge to step forward and roll the ball towards him, just to help the kid, put him out of his misery.

Suddenly JD let out a small gasp and his arm jerked forward once more, his fingers curling clumsily around the ball, his body shaking from the effort. He dragged his eyes away from his hand and looked up, catching Dr Cox with his gaze, his face breaking into a brief smile so flooded with relief it made Perry's throat tighten.

Dr Schuler clapped his hands. "You showed him kid, well done. Now, I think that's enough of the physical," He said pulling the ball from JD's fingers and dropping it back in the box whilst simultaneously pulling two other things out. "Let's get mental, as it were."

Silently he placed a small stack of cards on the table and a rectangular board which was about twice the size of a patient chart. Picking the cards up Dr Schuler sorted through them and put four of them face up on the table.

"Ok. Point to the one that would make you warm."

JD surveyed the cards in front of him. They were printed with simple pictures, a car, a smiley face, a sun and a sad face. Dr Schuler had placed the cards close to JD's left hand so it was easy for him to extend one of his fingers and point to the card with the sun on it.

"OK. How about the one that looks happy."

Struggling a little he moved his hand to the right and pointed to the smiley face.

"Ok, two for two."

Dr Schuler was about to put more cards on the table when JD inched his finger tips forward and flicked the card printed with the sad face so hard that it flew off the table and landed on the blanket covering his legs. Automatically, Perry bent forward to grab the card and when he leaned back over to the table JD had pulled his shaking hand back and was pointing a finger into his own, gown covered chest.

Dr Cox felt his breath catch and his stomach tighten as he fought hard to stay in control and not run from the room. He had never coped well with emotional situations and this was getting as emotional as they come. He really shouldn't be here he thought. Carla or Ghandi would have been better at this, hell even Barbie.

Schuler on the other hand didn't seem to notice Perry's discomfort and just seemed to let the moment wash over him.

"I know kid, I know. So you want to tell us something else?" He pushed the second object on the table towards JD. "This is an alphabet board and while you're busy being the strong, silent type it might come in useful."

* * *

"What are you doing?" Carla asked the Janitor, making him jump and kick his mop bucket, slopping the greying water all over the once sparkling floor. 

"I'm mopping this up now, thanks to you!"

Carla raised her eyebrows and the Janitor shuffled his feet apologetically.

"Were you eavesdropping?" She continued, her hands on her hips.

"No, I was just mopping real close to the door." He faltered.

"If you do anything ..." Carla continued but was cut off by Turk pushing her aside.

"What my woman is trying to say is stay outta that room. I don't know why but JD seems to find you scary and he really doesn't need you hanging around right now." Turk squared up as much as he could to the taller man.

The Janitor gave his cart a rough shove and moved away. "I just wanted to see if he was OK."

His voice was so sincere that Elliot almost felt bad, after all she couldn't understand why JD had such a bug up his ass about the guy. He always seemed nice to her. "I'll let you know how he's doing." She promised as Turk shoved open the door.

* * *

Dr's Schuler and Cox both looked up as they heard the door open and watched as Carla, Turk and Elliot pushed their collective way in, stopping abruptly as they noticed Dr Schuler was still there. 

"Sorry, we thought you'd be done by now." Turk apologised.

"Nearly." Dr Schuler replied with a quick smile. "You guys came at a good time. I was just thinking about what question to ask JD here, and you've just provided me with it." He turned back to JD and the letter board. "You want these folks to stay?"

JD concentrated hard on dragging his left hand over the board and pointing at the individual letters.

_**"Y-e-s"**_

JD let out the breath he'd been holding as he worked to spell the simple word out.

Dr Schuler nodded. "OK, well that's it for the highly scientific tests, now onto the diagnosis, what it means and what we can do about it." Schuler took a moment to squeeze the bridge of his nose, as if he had a headache. "JD, you're suffering from what we call an Acquired Brain Injury. I'm sure you know what that is right?"

_**Acquired Brain Injury. Not to be confused with intellectual disability. People with ABI may have difficulty controlling, communicating or coordinating their thoughts and actions but usually retain their intellectual abilities. **_

_**Yu**__**p, I got**__** the text book description down.**__** Weird how some things just stick in your head, huh?**_

"You've suffered damage to the parts of your brain that control movement, coordination and communication. Now you've just shown me that your movement is recovering, we got some pretty good strength in that left arm and a little coming back in the right and this time you managed to give Dr Cox here a little push with your feet so all that is good, _and_, you got rid of that ventilator which makes me a _very_ happy doc." Dr Schuler paused. "What you don't have is much ability to coordinate your movements which means when you get a little stronger you're gonna have to work really hard to relearn that coordination."

_**I don't follow you.**_

"Everything you used to be able to do will need to be relearned, walking, writing, tying laces, doing up buttons, that kind of stuff. Essentially all the things you learned as a child you need to relearn now as an adult."

_**Fuck.**_

"I won't pretend it will be easy JD because it won't, but I've seen other patients do this and I know you can too."

_**I can't.**_

"The other thing we need to figure out is why you're not shouting hello at us or taking this opportunity to call Dr Cox an ass. Now Dr Cox tells me you did have a little chat in the recovery room but you've gone all coy on us now."

_**I can't do this.**_

"You wanna try that speaking voice out on me?"

_**What? Oh, no...God no! It wasn't me, you have to understand that. It wasn't me, it didn't sound like me and it didn't come out like I wanted it to. **_

JD's hand struggled over the board.

_**"C-a-n-t"**_

_**I feel so tired. I just want to close my eyes and make all this go away.**_

"OK." Dr Schuler suddenly looked weary as he leaned over and patted JD's arm. "Like I said, everything needs relearning, which isn't impossible if you work with me JD, and I know you really don't want to at this moment in time, do you?" He stared into JD's blue eyes and smiled. "Trust me, I'll get you back. Maybe not exactly the same as you were, but close enough." With that he rose and picked up his box from the floor and stepped over to the door. "Perry, a moment."

* * *

Dr Cox followed him out of the room and into the hallway. "What?" 

"We need to get this kid moving and the quicker the better. I'll set up a physical therapy schedule for him and start him with speech therapy as soon as I can place him in a regular slot. His friends and any willing family members should sit in on some of the early sessions so that they can implement them as well, because the patients who do the best _always_ have people to run therapy with them other than those the hospital can assign."

"I'm just his boss." Perry said thickly.

"Yeah, and as a physician you're like a dog with a bone, which is why I'm telling you this. I've seen lots of patients like JD, Perry, I can see it in his eyes, he's already telling himself he can't do this, so in the low moments that will come, and they _will_ come, he'll need someone to drag him up by his collar and make him keep going. If anyone can bully him into this it's you." He turned to walk away as he continued. "Get those guys in there to help with extra PT, we want to keep him stimulated, keep him working and we'll force him if we have to."

* * *

_I have a__n alphabet__ board._

_I'm twenty eig__ht years old and I have an alphabet__ board._

_Oh and I'm currently dr__ooling into my girlfriends hair and not in a good, sexy way. Let me explain._

_Turk and Carla stayed for a while after Dr Schuler and Dr Cox left but I think they were really upset by what Schuler said. They tried to hide it but I could tell Turk was really wanting to bounce something __off the walls and Carla kept shaking her head every once in a while. I don't think she realised she was doing it._

_Anyway after a bit I stopped listening to what they were talking about and I was just kinda staring at Elliot. She was leaning against the wall by the side of my bed. She must have already gotten off her shift because she had her skinny jeans on and a little T-Shirt over her long sleeved shirt. It had two little bears on the front and said __'Grrr' underneath them. It was kinda cute and really summed Elliot up. _

_Her hair was falling into her eyes, like it always does and she'd just blown it out of the way for like the fifth time. __Then she looked at me and I could tell she wasn't really listening to Carla and Turk any more than I was. I moved my hand onto the board._

_**"H-e-y"**_

_Her face broke into a sudden smile and she looked right at me and mouthed 'hey' back and then she morphed into 'Elliot in Charge'._

"Hey, you guys, he's looking kinda tired. I think he needs some sleep."

_Carla and Turk got up from the chair where Turk had been sitting with Carla perched on his lap._

"Sure, right." _They both said together. Carla leaned forward and kissed me on my forehead and squeezed my hand and Turk did the same._ "See you in the morning brother." _Turk said as they left._

_And then it was just me and Elliot._

"You OK?" _She asked nervously as she moved to sit on the bed._

_I smiled at her, too tired to answer using the board and in any case, too scared of how she'd react if I was truthful and spelled out 'no'. Suddenly I realised that there was something I wanted her to do._

_It was me smiling at her that reminded me. Earlier my lip felt tight and itchy like it had sutures in it and I thought then about what I looked like, if my face showed some tell tale signs of what had happened to me, I thought then that I wanted to look in a mirror._

_I pushed my hand to the board._

_**"M-i-r-r-o-r"**_

_She swallowed and looked at me keenly for a moment._ "Sure." _She replied quietly and bent to fish around in her back pack before pulling out the compact mirror she always kept in there._

_She held the mirror up to my face and for the first time in what seemed like ages I looked at myself._

_It really wasn't as bad as I'd imagined. I had sutures in my lip. It looked like it had been split right through and I had a bruise around my right eye. It must have been one hell of an impact because the whole of the white of my eye was shot with blood and the lid was puffy and an ugly yellow colour. Apart from that I looked like utter crap. My skin was so pale I looked like I'd had a bag of flour thrown over me and under my eyes was shadowed black._

_As bad as my face looked I could live with it, but when I saw my hair, well, I considered using the alphabet board for some more than colourful words._

_Besides the fact that it hasn't been washed for what looks like years one side of my head is bald. Well, not exactly bald but covered in stubble and a large square of gauze and wadding._

_I closed my eyes and when I opened them again Elliot had gotten the message and had closed the mirror. _

_It hadn't helped. I still didn't know what had happened. I could have gotten those injuries from any one of a dozen things. There was only one thing left to do but when it came to doing it I have to admit I was scared._

_**"W-h-a-**__**t"**_

_**"H**__**-a-p-p-e-n-e-d" **_

_****__**"T-o" **_

**_"M-e-?"_**

_Elliot looked so pained at that moment I almost wished I hadn't asked. She sat on the bed next to me and pulled my hand into hers, hugging it to her chest._

"You were attacked on your way home from the hospital. They kicked you and hit your head with something." _She drew in a deep breath._ "They weren't muggers because they didn't take any of your stuff. We don't know why they did it."

_I dropped my I-Pod. I remember that._

_I feel myself frowning a little, trying to get my mind around what Elliot had just said. I was so lost in thought I hadn't noticed her kick her shoes off and climb onto the bed next to me._

_She's curled up at my side, her head pressed up against my cheek and I can smell the lemons in her hair again. I feel like I'm miles away, trapped in my own thoughts and that's when I realise that I'm drooling a little out of the corner of my mouth into her hair and I can't stop it._

_I can't stop myself from drooling._

_I have an alphabet board._

_I'm twenty eight years old, I can't stop myself from drooling and I have an alphabet board._

_And someone did this to me._

_Someone did this... to me._


	9. Chapter 8

A/N I should have updated days ago but I've had my ass kicked by the flu so couldn't do it until now. Sorry for the delay guys!

**Chapter Eight**

"Elliot." A calm voice whispered in the dimly lit room. _"Elliot."_ The voice urged again.

Elliot Reid felt a gentle hand smooth her bangs out of her face. "Consuela?" She muttered as she tried to peel her tongue from the roof of her mouth.

"No honey, but if it you want I can make like a good little Latina girl and fetch breakfast for you." The tone of the voice grew somewhat sharper.

Elliot prised her eyes open and peered into the gloom. For a moment she felt totally disoriented. She was neither in her apartment nor in her sugar pink, childhood bedroom as she'd briefly imagined. She _was _on a bed though, curled on her side with someone else stretched out behind her.

"Carla?" She mumbled, her voice thick with sleep. "What time is it?"

"Forty five minutes before your shift is due to start."

"Please tell me I'm already at the hospital and I'm not hideously late." She pleaded as her eyes slid shut again.

Carla pulled gently at her arm, dragging her into a sitting position on the side of the bed. "Yes, you're at the hospital. You fell asleep here, in JD's room."

Elliot blinked, rubbed her eyes and looked over her shoulder at JD's sleeping form. "Uugh, I feel like crap!"

"That'll happen when you sleep on the edge of a hospital bed made for one." Carla rubbed her arm gently. Before moving away to the window to pull the blinds a little way open.

The sudden addition of light in the room made Elliot wince as she stoked JD's limp hair away from his face.

"He needs a shave." She said quietly as she moved her hand down to his jaw line over the stubble that had grown there.

Carla walked back over to the bed. "I was gonna get one of the other nurses to do it later this morning, that and freshen him up a little, sort the catheter out if it looks like he's able to press the call button when he needs to." Carla finished the sentence but the air was heavy with something she'd left unsaid.

"But?" Elliot pressed.

"But, I don't know if he'd rather someone else do it or me. I guess I'll have to ask him." She gave Elliot an uncomfortable look. "You wanna grab a coffee? I got a half hour before I'm on."

"Yeah, I don't want to wake him up yet. He needs the sleep."

* * *

Perry lay on the floor next to his couch holding Jack firmly around his chubby stomach as he bounced him up and down a couple of times. Settling him down again he stared into the baby's eyes and Jack stared back just as intently before exploding into a string of baby talk. If the infant was hoping for a response he didn't get one. 

Perry didn't do baby talk, he didn't coo or burble. He could toss out an impassioned diatribe over a scotch while his son stared on from his bouncy chair, but he did _not_ do baby talk.

Deep down he wished he could. Wished he could be one of those perfect dads you saw jogging around the park with newborns nestled across their chests, swaddled in something that looked like a table cloth snagged from an Italian restaurant. He wished he could do that, wished he could find the strength to suck it up and take little Jack-Jack to baby yoga, wished he knew what the hell a Manhattan Whoozit was. But he didn't. He wasn't that guy. He was just a slightly scary, old dad. Just like his dad before him.

Shoving that last, insidious thought to one side Perry sat up and gently rolled Jack onto his back, letting him lay flat on top of his legs, watching as his son waved his arms and legs around like an upturned bug.

"It's fun watching him do that isn't it?" Jordan called from behind him.

"Absolutely. He'd probably be panicking if he knew he had to rely on us to tip him back the right way!" Perry laughed without turning. "What time's the nanny supposed to show?"

"Eight –thirty." Jordan replied as she struggled with her earring. "So yeah, she's late and her ass is toast."

"Well, sweetness, try not to burn it completely, we don't want this one to quit do we?"

Jordan mumbled something under her breath as Perry pushed himself up from the floor whilst balancing Jack on his hip.

"So what's happening with DJ then?" Jordan enquired casually.

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean I heard that Schuler expects a little extra help from the great Dr Cox, because of course he assumes you're actually a _friend_ of Sally's, and all the rest of us are on the edge of our seats waiting to see whether he'll get it." She glanced at his frowning face. "Seriously, we're all gripped. Word is that Laverne rates this little drama more highly than her stories."

Perry slid Jack into his bouncy chair and proceeded to stumble over one of his toys on his way to the kitchen. "How do you know this?" He groused. "You spend, at most, an hour a week at the dump, so again I am compelled to ask, how do you know this?"

"I hang around all the time, you just don't notice." She replied sweetly. "Really Per, you didn't think my life was all day spas did you? And anyway, you're avoiding the question."

Perry was quiet for a moment before he abruptly switched topic. "D'you think I'll be as bad a father as my own father was?" He asked as he poured himself another coffee.

"If ya try really hard you might just manage it." She snapped, more irritated by his inability to talk to her than she allowed herself to show.

"Seriously Jordan, really, I'm serious."

She blew out a breath and dumped her handbag on the kitchen counter. "Is this about Jacky or DJ?"

"Come on!" He shot her an annoyed look.

"OK!" She held her hands up in defeat. "You'll never know unless you try. Try for him Perry, try to give something of yourself to this annoying little person and see how it pans out. You might be surprised." She pulled her bag off the counter and grabbed her tailored jacket from the back of the dining chair. Stepping towards the door she turned back to look at Perry. "The number for the nanny is on the fridge. _You_ call her and kick her ass. Oh and Perry, just then, _I_ was talking about Jacky _and_ DJ."

* * *

_I'm lying on my back with my head turned to the side, staring out of the window. _

_I can see __tree tops._

_I know that __beneath__ them is the park with its mossy grass, random joggers, dog walkers, old guys stuck to benches reading the funnies and tight groups of teenagers who look like they've escaped from the set of Lost Boys.__ Oh and doctors and nurses on breaks, on their way home or just coming in, dragging their feet so they can delay the start of the day._

_All those people ready to get __the next twenty four hours__ over and done__ with__, all star__t__ing out in that little park, just like I have hundreds of times before._

_I think about them and I think about myself and I realise something. _

_I hate them._

_I really do__ but more than that I hate myself for thinking like this. When did I ever think like this?_

_Maybe it started when I asked Elliot what happened. It had been on my mind from the first second I'd become aware of myself again__ but if I'm honest, totally honest, it never occurred to me that it was something purposefully violent._

_Does that make sense?_

_What I mean is that I had a range of scenarios running through my head like__ car accident; I slipped on a wet patch of floor and banged my head; I contracted a virus from one of my patients and became dangerously ill. _

_I had carefully nurtured__ these little vignettes in my head and completely believed that it would be a case of finding out which one it was. But now I find that it was none of the above. It was a person or maybe people who didn't want anything, just a body to kick, a body that spent all it's time fixing people and could maybe, one day, have been fixing one of them._

_I wish I could see them__ face to face__ just to find out __'__why__'._

_And no, not the 'why' you're all thinking. The 'why' I want to ask them is this; Why didn't you __just __**keep **__on kicking?_

_Because lying here, __faced with the reality of having to learn how to walk,__ talk, write, do everything again, lying here thinking about that and the people in the park__, I __have just one wish._

_I wish__ I had died._

* * *

"So, how are you holding up?" Carla asked Elliot as they drank their coffee in the cafeteria. 

"Huh?" Elliot stared at Carla as if she had just grown two heads.

"I asked how you were holding up, you know with everything that's happened."

"I always hold up Carla, you know that!"

"Uh huh," Carla nodded. "And which supply closet will you be doing today's round of holding up in? Just so I know if we need to find you."

"Why does everyone assume I'm always going to flake?" Elliot moaned. "Why would I not be able to deal, huh?"

"Well, because your boyfriend and best friend was beaten into a coma and has just woken up with brain damage." Carla said plainly.

"Thanks for the heads up." Elliot replied nastily. "I can deal with this Carla. I'm strong enough to deal with this and I can get us _both_ through it."

"Both?"

"Yes, both of us, me _and_ JD." Elliot pressed her lips together defiantly, challenging Carla to disagree.

Carla laid a hand on her friends arm. "I'm not saying you can't Elliot, I'm just asking how you are because this is hard for me and Turk so it has to be doubly hard for you because he's your boyfriend and people expect you to behave a certain way. I just want you to know that if the pressure gets to you I'm always here to talk to."

"What do you mean 'behave in a certain way'?"

"Well, like when I took care of my Mom. I was her daughter and everyone expected that I would just give up everything I wanted out of life to care for her regardless. People expect stuff and think the worst of you if you fail _their_ expectations, but you need to look past that and make sure _you're_ OK with what you're doing."

Elliot gave Carla an appraising look before setting her coffee cup down. "So you mean now I'm lumbered with a cripple for a boyfriend I should really think about whether I can be bothered with the hassle of him? Should I go ahead and dump him now, move onto a fully functioning model?"

"No, Elliot..."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence Carla, I mean we've only been dating three weeks and I haven't even gotten close to understanding my feelings yet but knowing your expectations of me and that if we do break up everyone will automatically assume it's because I'm a heartless bitch, that's great. Thanks for all the support."

"Elliot, all I meant was that I understand what it's like to be pushed into the role of carer for someone, I did it for a long time and it was hard and pressured and ..."

"Don't worry Carla. As soon as it gets too hard I promise you'll be the first to know. Maybe you and the other nurses could run a sweepstake on how long I last." With that she stood clumsily, shoved her chair back and strode out of the cafeteria.

* * *

Elliot stamped her way up the stairs to the roof. She didn't really like it out here, preferring the womb like feel of a supply closet any day but she sure as hell wasn't going to give Carla the satisfaction of finding her in one two minutes after her cafeteria show down. 

Groaning she let herself slump against the outer brick wall. She'd yelled at Carla and now she felt crappy. It wasn't really Carla's fault, she'd been trying to help but it was just the wrong time and the wrong thing to say.

A couple of days earlier she'd had the same conversation with her mom, well the same conversation minus any of the tact and caring, but the same conversation all the same.

Her mother had gone to great, tactless pains to inform Elliot that she wasn't cut out to have a partner she needed to care for. Elliot of course had tried to point out that her job did actually involve a certain amount of caring but her mother had told her that she was being ridiculous, that diagnosing and treating was what she did, not caring.

And deep down Elliot feared that she was right.

Also her mom just had to point out that if she kept herself 'shackled to a cripple', and _yes_, those were her exact words, she'd be the one working herself into early wrinkles to keep him in the best day care centres.

After just ten minutes Elliot had run out of the energy to argue and settled for making a 'bad line' noise and hanging up.

And that said it all, she, Elliot Reid had no guts, and if she didn't even have the guts to stand up to her mother how could she muster the strength to support JD?

* * *

JD didn't even try to hide his sulking as Carla flitted around the room taking stats, fiddling with the blinds, anything but really looking at him. Finally after she'd exhausted her list of things to do she had no choice but to stop and sit on the edge of the bed. 

"How're you feeling this morning?"

JD blinked and continued his task of staring out of the window.

"Not spelling today?" She suppressed a sigh and carried on. "We need to get you freshened up and take the catheter out." The silence stretched over her nerves. "I wanted to know if you felt happier with me doing it or someone else."

After what seemed like an eternity JD rolled his head back and stared at her. She tried to read him by staring into his eyes but she had to admit she hadn't a clue what he was thinking. For a brief moment she thought he looked like he might laugh but it was gone so quickly she realised she must have imagined it.

_Happier? Did she actually say happier? That's actually funny._

He stared at Carla, watched her as she absently smoothed the sheets on the bed, heard her breath catching in her throat a little.

Suddenly JD felt ashamed of himself. She was trying to help him and he was acting up because he felt...what, what did he feel? Angry. That's what he felt, but he shouldn't take it out on Carla. What he should do is think, think properly about what she had just asked him. Did he really want Carla washing him, taking the catheter out or someone else, someone he didn't really know? It was a close call but Carla had already done the catheter thing once so really, he decided, getting someone else would be a bit like closing the barn door after the horse had bolted.

_OK. Time to be Carla's Bamb__i again and stop acting like an ass._

Slowly JD stretched out his left hand and pulled the letter board onto his lap.

_**Y-o-u**_

_**D-o**_

_**I-t-?**_

"Of course I will, Bambi. I'll just go get some things." Carla answered. She stood up as if to leave but then sat back down heavily on the edge of the bed. "I can't do this." She whispered to herself before turning back to JD and giving him a falsely bright smile.

"I don't know why I'm doing this, why we're all doing this." She started, faltering as her throat tightened and her eyes filled with tears as she stared at JD.

_**W-h-a-t-?**_

"All this...pretending."

_Pretending about what Carla?_

Tears spilled and ran freely down her face as she reached out and squeezed JD's hand, pulling it from the face of the letter board.

"All this stupid _'__ignoring what's happened__'_ crap! I know we're supposed to be cheerful and positive in front of you but I can't do it! I want to scream at someone and rage and throw stuff and tell you how horrible I feel for you and shout that it's not fair and ..._blame_...someone!" She sobbed openly now, everything from the last few days spilling out, her fear for JD, her fight with Elliot, her baby arguements with Turk. Batting away the waterfall with her free hand, she carried on. "But there's no one to blame, and carrying on like this won't help you." She petered out and sniffed loudly.

JD gave her hand a quick squeeze and then clumsily pulled away from her, his hand dropping back to the board.

**D-o-e-s**

**H-e-l-p.**

**F-e-el**

**S-a-m-e**

Carla face crumpled and she took another loud sniff as she dragged damp strands of hair out of her face.

**H-u-g**

**M-e?**

**P-l-e-a-s-e-?**

Carla's stomach twisted. "Of course I will." She leaned forward and wound her arms around JD's shoulders, pulling him forward slightly until his head rested on her chest and her cheek pressed into his hair, the sudden onslaught of bodily contact making his stomach lurch and head spin under the weight of his emotions.

* * *

Perry Cox felt happy as he strode through the halls of Sacred Heart, happy with himself. He had finally made a decision and it was that decision that had led him storming into the Physical Therapy department on the second floor. 

"Ok, sweet cheeks." He snapped to a random nurse who just happened to be in the way. "Where do I find out what programmes a patient is booked into?"

The nurse smiled back at him. "Promise to leave the 'sweet cheeks' crap at the door and I just might tell you."

Perry smirked at her and tried again. "Ok, pretty please, where can I find the info I'm looking for."

"You do know you've never scared me don't you Dr Cox?"

Perry sighed dramatically. "Apart from when we dated."

"Perry we never dated. You asked me on a date and then you didn't show because you got paged back here."

Perry raised his eyebrows in what he hoped was an apologetic manner. "Patient Programmes?"

"Which patient?"

"Dorian."

She leaned over the nurse's station and tapped the computer keyboard. "He's getting a visit this afternoon at 2pm from..." She went silent as she checked for the therapists names. "Aah...Debbie and Darren," She looked up at Dr Cox, "you'll love those guys, they are so nice and they work really well together, they'll be talking through the sessions he'll be starting this week and they'll probably try getting him mobilised too."

"Thanks. And sorry about that date." Perry pushed himself away from the desk.

"Don't worry about it. I managed to get over it!" She called after him. "And, Cox, be nice to Debbie and Darren!"

Perry shook his head as he walked down the corridor, his stomach curling at the oh so cutesy thought of them.

* * *

_When Carla cried this morning it actually made me feel a little better because honestly, it had gotten kinda weird watching everyone starting to act as if what was happening were normal in some way, as if it was normal to go to work one day and the next wake up unable to move or speak or ...anything._

_Also she made Mr __I Hate __Everyone__ go away when she hugged me. _

_I don't think he'll stay away though and that scares me, makes me feel like I'm disappearing, like I don't really know myself anymore. I mean I know who JD is but who is this guy who __lies__ in__ bed all day having murderous thoughts about the people in the park? Who the hell is __**that**__ guy?_

_I try to think about it__ but it makes my head hurt. Maybe it's just how I feel today and tomorrow I'll be Mr Sunshine again. Maybe. Maybe it's because today has sucked so far._

_I kinda thought that I'd gotten the worst moment of my life over and done with __that day __I woke up to find my penis in Dr Cox's hand but after this morning I'm not so sure._

_I'd mentally braced myself for what I knew would be the __first __sucky__ moment__; Carla's clean up session, __but it wasn't as bad as I expected._

_I have to admit I felt a little tense when Carla started washing me. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that it was embarrassing, but after a while I kind of relaxed into it. Now I know that sounds really strange, but I did, I relaxed and I think it was because __she did it without any pity, without tossing me any sorry looks. She did it just like she would for any other patient, with care and dignity, and at that moment I knew for the first time exactly what it was that made her a **great** nurse. __I was a little more jumpy when it came to removing the catheter but she was so quick it was over before I knew it. _

_What __turned out to be __an __infinitely more painful __suckfest__ was breakfast._

_I was__ supposed to t__ry to eat something which in its self wasn't an issue__, however, __Elliot trying to help me was._

_I hadn't been looking__ forward to eating. Having Carla hold a cup with a straw in it f__or me __the day before __was bad enough so someone feeding me would__ only be worse__, wouldn't it? I did__n't even feel hungry but that could be because __I__'d__ had this little bag of nutritionally balanced goo hooked up to me at some point. _

_I found that really disconcerting__ that I did__n't remember __anyone telling me about it, or it being there or __it __even __being connected. You'd think I would remember someone fixing a bag to a tube sticking out of my stomach wouldn't you?_

_So anyway, the thought of how humiliating it was going to be to be fed by someone like a toddler,__ coupled with the fact that the G-Tube had started to itch, __the stitches holding the tube in place pull__ing __and sting__ing, made me angry all over again and then Elliot walked in._

_It wasn't that I was unhappy to see her,__ in fact__ I was desperate to see her but just not at that __precise __moment, not with Carla about__ to feed me oatmeal out of a plastic bowl!_

_And then she said the worst thing possible. She said she'd help._

_Great. How do I tell her that I don't want this, that I don't want my lover to be my carer because I'm scared, no, terrified that she'll suddenly see the __situation for what it really is? Her;__a hot girl who could get any guy wiping up after a ... after a...I don'__t even know what to call myself!__ Whatever, if I let her do this stuff she'll see me for exactly what I am now, a burden on her._

_I could see in her eyes how badly she wanted to do it so I tried to let her but as she held the spoon to my lips I felt my stomach roll and my skin prickle __and I knew at that moment I'd turned redder than a beetroot._

_So I did what I thought was best._

_I turned my __head away from the spoon and __tapped the letter board with my fingers, getting her attention._

_**W-a-n-t**_

_**C-a-r-l-a**_

_**D-o**_

_**T-h-i-s**_

_It didn't take long for her to get all flustered and leave the room after that and I felt like a complete ass. She looked like I'd kicked her favourite puppy or something and she snapped at Carla on her way out like it was her fault which made me feel even worse._

_After she'd gone Carla took up the bowl and spoon._

"D'you want to try again?"_ She asked._

_I nodded. I was sick of spelling things out. It was hard concentrating and it was impossible to spell out everything I wanted to say but I had to try and explain about the feeding thing though._

_**D-o-n-t**_

_**L-e-t**_

_**E-l-l-i-o-t**_

_**D-o**_

_**T-h-i-s**_

"I won't Bambi. I'll try to explain to her when she's calmed down."

_**F-e-e-l**_

_**S-t-u-p-i-d**_

_**E-m-b-a-r-r-a-s-e-d**_

_There wasn't much Carla could say to that so she just started spooning the oatmeal in, in between drying the corners of my eyes with her sleeve._


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Turk stood in the doctor's lounge; his feet planted firmly apart, hands on his hips. He raised his eyebrows as Dr Cox entered the room.

He didn't really want to talk to the guy but he needed to. It wasn't the best of times though, he was tired and irritable. Carla hadn't been talking much last night and when she did it was just to get a 'family' dig in. Why couldn't she just give him a little time? Was it really too much to ask?

A child lasted for your whole life, if you're blessed, so what the hell was wrong with him wanting to take a couple of minutes to think about having one! Sure he'd _kind of_ agreed with her when they were on their honeymoon but didn't she understand that his mind wasn't exactly on what her mouth was saying at the time but more on what it was doing. Hell, he would have agreed to anything at _that_ particular moment!

Suddenly he was aware of someone staring at him and it was only then that he realised he was still staring at Dr Cox with a dumb, semi surprised look on his face.

Perry stared at Turk expectantly before deciding he didn't have all day and needed to get the ball rolling. "You paged me Ghandi?"

Shaking all thoughts of angry Carla from his mind Turk finally got around to what he wanted to talk about. "Yeah, look, there's really no question about whether I'm gonna do this PT thing with JD. I just wanted to know if you were in it with me or not."

"_With _you?"

"You know what I mean. Are you gonna help with JD's PT like Schuler asked or not?"

"I haven't decided yet." Perry replied simply.

"Look, Dr Cox, I know you have this weird, bad ass image to maintain and that might make you feel like you need to distance yourself from this but I just want you to consider what you mean to JD. And don't do that whole rolling of the eyes crap!"

Turk paused, blowing his breath out a little. "Look, I know that you and JD are like, poles apart when it comes to personality and he bugs the crap out of you the same way his need for your approval on every goddamn thing bugs the crap out of me, but at the end of the day he's a good guy, always have your back when you need him, always be there for you without question, so I want to show him that there are people here who will do the same for him."

"I never asked him to have my back, Ghandi, in fact last time I looked I pretty much covered my own back." Perry replied flicking his nose and raising his eyebrows back at Turk.

Turk shook his head and sighed. "Alright, you need no one, you're a veritable island, I get it, but JD isn't and at this point in time he really needs our help, so I'm asking, are you gonna help like Schuler asked?" Turk, sighed feeling like he was getting nowhere fast. "Come on! JD looks up to you, you know that, so if you tell him to move his butt he's gonna do it, isn't he, he's gonna motivate himself more for you than for me or Carla. Also you're less likely to go easy on him and that's what he needs right now, someone who'll _make_ him do this."

Perry studied Turk for a moment before clearing his throat. "Nice speech Ghandi, Newbie's lucky to have you on his side, but really it wasn't necessary because I'm already one step ahead of you. He's been assigned to Debbie and, god forbid, Darren and they'll be stopping by at 2 O'clock and I'm gonna go ahead and place a whole weeks salary that they are as annoying as their names suggest." He folded his arms and stared at Turk. "But, despite the potential terror of being in a room with Debs and Daz, I _will_ be there, so Chocolate, the real question is, are _you_ gonna be able to make it, 'cause I already went ahead and checked the surgery rota and your scheduled to assist Dr Amato at 1.30."

With that Dr Cox wheeled out of the lounge, as smug look plastered on his face as Turk shouted after him. "I'll get Todd to cover, hell I'll get the damn Janitor to cover if I have to. I'll be there!"

* * *

"You gonna hide in here all day?" 

"Just... Carla just go away, alright?" Elliot sniffed as she absently fiddled with a box of tongue depressors on the shelf next to her.

"He doesn't want you to see him like that Elliot, he's embarrassed."

"Embarrassed?"

Carla nodded.

"I'm his girlfriend Carla, and more than that I'm his friend! We've known each other for three years, so why should he be embarrassed?"

"Elliot, you know it's not unusual, after all who wants to be ..."

Elliot cut her off. "Did you put him up to this?"

"Elliot!"

Suddenly the door to the supply closet swung open and Turk peered around it.

"Is there a reason why we're all in here?"

Neither Elliot nor Carla spoke both shuffling their feet and looking anywhere but at each other.

"Okaaay." Turk frowned. "Thought you'd both want to know that JD has a session with his physical therapy team this afternoon. I'm not sure what shifts you guys are on but it's at 2 if you can make it. Dr Cox and I'll be there though, so if you can't make it we can fill you in."

The small room was silent for a moment before Elliot began to push her way past Turk and out of the door. "I'm still on shift at 2. Besides, I wouldn't want to make him uncomfortable, would I?" With that Elliot left but not before giving Carla a meaningful glare.

After a moment Carla spoke up. "I'm still on shift at 2 as well so..."

"S'okay. It's probably best if there aren't too many people crowding him." Carla tried to duck past him into the corridor but he snagged her sleeve as she passed. "Baby, what d'you do?"

"Nothing!" Carla raised her voice in indignation.

"Well Elliot seemed a bit rattled for 'nothing' to have happened."

"I gotta get back Turk." She snapped.

"Baby, please just ..."

"No Turk, I said I need to get back. But let me guess, you want to talk now, now that it suits you, oh and you get to choose the topic, which of course will be anything you want except our family!"

"Wait, how did this get turned around into the 'baby' talk?"

Carla frowned at him and shook her head. "God you're an ass!" With that she shoved him against the half open door and marched out leaving Turks head reeling and a bruise forming on his back.

"How the _hell _did that just end up being about us?"

* * *

_I've been pretty bummed out since breakfast __with__ Elliot walking out. I just want to explain what was going on in my head but it doesn't look like she's going to come back any time soon, and if she doesn't, well...I'm pretty much a captive audience so she can do exactly what she wants, can't she? I should have thought about that before I pushed her away._

_It wasn't that I wanted to push her away I just didn't want her around at that particular soul destroying moment in my life._

_I want her around now __though. _

_I keep thinking about __last__ night and her laying down beside me__, how that __made me feel almost normal, how when I clo__sed my eyes __I__ pretend__ed__ we were at __her place, in her bed, sleeping together, touching each other like every other regular couple, and I felt free for the first __time __since this whole painfully awful thing began._

_I wish I could tell her __that's what I need her for, just __for that tiny hint of normalcy, __not for spoon feeding oatmeal, but for __making me feel connected to something instead of__ adrift in my own body__, and that's how I feel, adrift, waiting for people to come close only to watch them move away again._

_I __wish I could spell that for her, but I can't and it doesn't seem like she'll be back anytime soon, so what else can I do apart from lie here and stare out the window. _

_Sometimes I'll let my eyes close and pretend everything is normal again and I'm taking a nap in the on call room. I can do it, as long as everyone leaves me alone, I can do it and for some of the time I can almost convince myself I'm OK._

* * *

"OK Dr Cox, so is there anything special we need to be looking out for with John?" Darren Parker asked as he stood outside JD's room, preparing himself for meeting his newest patient. 

Perry surveyed the enthusiastic Physical Therapist that stood in front of him, bouncing up and down on his feet in his immaculate sweat pants and Sacred Heart T-shirt. He was as near a perfect human being as Perry had ever seen. His hair was perfect, his skin was perfect, his teeth, well damn it if they weren't perfect too. All that and he was buff, buff and Perry hated him.

"He had a couple of broken ribs, which might still be a little sore and we put a G-Tube in so you should watch out for that, unless of course you want to give him peritonitis, and in that case, hell just go ahead and make sure you dislodge it!"

Darren ignored Dr Cox's sarcasm. "That's not gonna be easy to work around. The therapy's gonna be intensive and a lot of it will be done lying on his side." He frowned.

"Relax Tarzan, it'll be gone by tomorrow. Jane in there is the only person I know who would let us go to the trouble of placing a G-Tube only to wake up an hour later and spit out the reason for needing it in the first place."

"Jane?"

"It's one in an inexhaustible line of pet names, Sportacus, but you should go ahead and call him JD, all his friends do."

"So that makes you what, not his friend?"

"I'm his boss and now his doctor. My getting involved in this therapy stuff is just an extra step in his treatment and if you bother to ask around you'll find out lots of things about me, mostly that I am a god and yet I still get my hands dirty with mere mortal patients, thus I sometimes _do_ take that extra step with them."

Darren frowned at the man stood opposite him. "Why do I get the impression that you're gonna be harder work than my patient?"

Perry flashed him his best 'you better believe it' smile.

"Look, Dr Cox, what JD is going to have to overcome during the next couple of months will be incredibly hard physically and mentally and he's gonna need people around him who are genuinely supportive. Is he gonna get that from you, 'cause if not I'd rather you bail right now."

Perry was quiet for a second while he fixed Darren with his best angry stare. "I take what I do seriously. He'll get what he needs from me and anyone else who helps. Why else would we go to all the trouble of keeping people alive, huh? That's what gets them into your little PT groups in the first place, people like me working my ass off and taking what I do seriously."

Darren smiled suddenly. "Good. I just needed to make sure we were both on the same page here, 'cause understand this, if I feel that you're having a detrimental effect on JD's recovery I'll kick your ass to the sidelines faster than you can say a random girls name. Ah, there's Debbie."

Darren gave a quick wave toward a dark haired girl who bounced down the hall towards them, for all the world looking like Darren's twin sister in her gleaming perfection. Perry grabbed the door handle, pushing open the door and suppressing a groan.

* * *

Much later that afternoon Dr Cox and Turk sat side by side, slouched back on the couch in the doctors' lounge, staring blankly ahead, Turk listlessly wafting the air with an X-Ray film. 

They were both quiet, neither of them paying any attention to the soap opera playing on the TV in front of them.

After another minute of silence Perry suddenly stretched out his legs and shoved one of his hands behind his head whilst his free hand shot out and snagged the film from Turks hand. He flicked it in his fingers to get the sheet flat and angled it up toward the ceiling for what must have been the tenth time.

"He's gotta have the worst luck of anyone in this place. Two fractured vertebrae, on top of everything else." Perry sighed.

Turk turned to look at him and nodded, his eyes drifting back to the film, falling on two thin jagged lines idly bisecting two of the five lumbar vertebrae displayed on the film.

"It definitely didn't go down well with the V Bear." He sighed.

"And you could tell how? Let me guess, it was his annoying refusal to communicate which contrasted starkly with his earlier annoying refusal to communicate?"

Turk scrubbed his hands over his face. "What are we gonna do?"

"Not let him give up." Perry replied simply as he returned his gaze to the X-Ray film and thought back to what had happened that afternoon.

When he'd pushed the door to JD's room open he found Turk already in there, sitting in the chair by the bed.

"Hey. Ghandi this is Darren Parker and Debbie ..." Perry faltered realising he didn't know the therapists last name. Leaning a little closer he peered at her name tag. "Dallas? Does that say...? Dallas?"

"Sure does!" Debbie replied with a beaming smile.

"Your name is Debbie Dallas?" Dr Cox pressed his voice incredulous as Turk laughed and started at the floor.

"OK." Darren cut in. "You guys can ponder all the comedy implications of Debbie's name on your own time. The real challenge is to come up with ones we haven't heard before. In the mean time let's see what we can do for our patient shall we?" Darren looked expectantly at Turk.

"Sure, this is JD." Turk turned back to the bed and rested his hand on JD's arm looking back at Darren when he got no response.

Darren stepped past Turk and sat on the side of the bed. "You always this quiet, JD?"

JD didn't register that he'd heard the question; he just stared past the man sat on his bed and gazed out of the window.

Turk's voice cut through the silence. "He was doing OK yesterday but since this morning he's not ... well, he doesn't seem to be, uh ...doing so good."

"You not feeling like talking or using your letter board for me?" Darren asked as he tapped the board lying dormant under JD's hand. After a moments silence he carried on. "OK. My name's Darren and you've been added to my service for Physical Therapy. We'll be starting off with a fairly intensive programme to get those limbs listening to your brain again." He paused as he watched JD blink and continue staring out the window. "We'll start with an hour session each morning and then build it up to both morning and afternoon when we think you can manage it. First thing we're gonna start with today though is you showing me that you can sit up."

JD blinked again.

"Oh, almost forgot to introduce you to Debbie. She gonna make some notes for me today but her speciality is getting you strong, silent types to open up."

Debbie gave JD a small wave.

"She's gonna be your speech therapist and she'll be starting tomorrow with you. I'll let you into a secret; she's a real slave driver, so she'll be seeing you every day."

"Don't listen to him, JD." Debbie cut in. "I'm no slave driver I promise."

Turk started to nervously flex his fingers as JD continued to ignore Darren. Suddenly he felt Debbie's hand on his arm as she pulled him over to Dr Cox. "Could you guys give us a minute alone with JD?" She asked her voice low. "Just one minute and we'll call you right back in." She smiled at them as she pulled the door open and gently ushered them both outside.

Darren watched them go. "Thanks Deb." He turned back to JD. "They seem like good friends to have." JD didn't move. "The guy in the lab coat has been scaring the nurses in our department left and centre to get info on your schedule with us and it looks like they're spending their break time here to see what we're doing. They agreed to 'buddy' you as well. You know what I mean by that?" Darren pressed on despite the silence. "They come along to our sessions and see what we do so they can pitch in with extra sessions with you."

JD blinked again.

"OK. So using your friends to guilt you into working with me is a wash out. How about we make a deal? You don't want us here and you don't want to do the therapy, right?"

JD turned his head a little so he could look at Darren.

"I get it. It's no big deal, really, happens all the time. How about we agree to do this one thing today and then I back off and you don't have to do anymore?"

JD stared at Darren for a moment before closing his eyes and taking a small shaky breath.

"We got a deal?" Darren pressed. "It'll make us go away and you can get back to doing your own thing."

JD nodded.

"OK. Debs, you can get those guys back in now."

When Turk and Dr Cox came back in the room they both noticed that JD was looking at them, sullenly yes, but still it was better than him staring out the window and not engaging them at all.

As the door closed behind them Darren took his seat back on the side of the bed as Debbie pulled the blanket back from JD's legs.

"Right JD, I want you to try to sit up for me without the bed pushing you up. Now, you've been inactive for a couple of weeks so I don't expect you to be able to do this on your own straight off but I do expect most of the hard work to come from you. Dr Schuler's notes show the best of your strength and dexterity is in your left arm so what I want you to do is this. I'm gonna lean into you and I want you to put your left arm around my shoulders, not my neck, and I want you to use the muscles in your lower back and your hold across my shoulders to push yourself up with, OK?"

Darren leaned forward and JD slowly wrapped his arm around Darren's shoulder.

"First rule is we take everything slow." Darren said as he felt JD's grasp on his shoulders tighten. "I'm going to lean back a little and you need to try to push yourself into me."

Perry watched uncomfortably as JD's hand curled into the fabric of Darren's shirt and he pushed himself forward, his forehead touching the therapists left shoulder. He heard him draw his breath in sharply as he moved forward and Darren pulled back, helping him up into a more upright position.

"That's good. Let's just hold it there for a second while you take a breather." Darren said after a while.

It was only then that both Dr Cox and Turk realised that JD was gasping.

"Just take it easy for a moment buddy; we got nothing to rush for." Darren continued as he heard JD's breaths speed up and felt his hand twist in his T-Shirt. "OK?"

JD nodded his head slightly.

"You're nearly there, just a little further and you'll be sitting up straight."

JD pressed his forehead hard against Darren's shoulder, pushing himself further up, his gasps turning into a small whimper. Turk shuffled his feet and stepped forward.

"It looks like this is hurting him, should this hurt?"

"It's OK, it can be hard making this first move but it shouldn't be painful..." Debbie answered but was interrupted by Dr Cox.

"No he looks like he's in some discomfort." He winced slightly as JD cried out again, his breath now coming in short ragged gasps, his hand slipping from Darren's shoulder forcing the therapist to shift his arm further around JD's back to support him.

Both Turk and Dr Cox were about to speak when they were cut off by a sound they hadn't heard for a while.

_"Ssst..__o..pp__"_


	11. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

_On the count of three I'm going to open my eyes._

_One. I'm getting ready._

_Two. Here goes._

_Three. Nope. I'm not ready._

_You see I woke up a __moment__ ago and I still haven't opened my eyes. Now don't panic, it's not 'cause I can't__ it's because, well, __I don't want to. __Let me try to explain. _

_I guess__ the easiest way is to say__ it__ feels__ a bit like when __you're __a__ kid on Christmas __morning... __minus__ the presents and excitement and any __fun... __God, __I'm really not explaining th__is well at __all... __you see, __I used to love__ that first moment when you woke __up and anything was possible, like y__ou could have a whole stack of presents at the foot of your bed or nothing__ and you wouldn't know until you opened your eyes and that's how I feel at this precise moment._

_I'm__ like that science guy w__ho put the cat in the metal box, closed the lid __and said __'__the cat is __both alive and __dead__'. __I'll admit __that whilst __it's not a good way to treat any pe__t;__ Turk and I would never do that to Rowdy,__ it does __illustrate__ a point. I was never __exactly __sure what the point was but I think it was something like;__ your life can be screwed or not screwed and is neither__ until you open your eyes and face it._

_And that'__s why my eyes are closed, because I don't want to face it._

_The last thing I remember was __lots and lots of pain which has left me __pretty much leaning to__wards__ the __'__my life is screwed__'__ side of things._

_I remember __being in my room with __Turk and Dr Cox and this amazingly upbeat guy called Darren__ who had the most perfect teeth I have ever seen, which is something considering that I live in California! Anyway, Mr Perfect Teeth was__ trying to get me to sit up all the while my trusty internal monologue was telling me I couldn't do it. __And damn, __Internal Monologue Me __was __right!_

_I got so far up and then i__t felt like someone had forced__ a burning knife__ into__ my back__. I've never felt pain like it, even the time Dan set my hair on fire trying to see if he could light a match on my face couldn't come close to how this felt._

_It was agonising and __everything seemed to happen at once. M__y left leg __went numb__ and__ I could __hear my breaths getting sharper, __feel __the __sweat creeping down my back and over my forehead.__ I __thought about trying to __say something but all I could do was pull Darren__'__s shirt and hope he stopped._

_He did._

_For__, like, a second, the big moron!_

_I suppose__ you have to hand it to the guy, he's a tryer, which is unfortunate because the new me obviously isn't. I know I wasn't exactly feeling open to the idea of sitting up when he first mentioned it but having agreed I wasn't gonna jerk the guy around, honestly, I really did want to do it for him. I just couldn't. It felt too bad._

_He had to stop, he just had to and the only way left for me to get him to was to tell him. I didn't want to, especially with Turk and Dr Cox there because I could remember what I sounded like the last time I tried to talk, it was horrible and to be honest it kinda scared me._

_I guess it goes back to the reason I don't want to open my eyes. _

_I'm scared and pathetically chicken and I don't want to know the worst about myself._

_I had to do it though, the guy wasn't gonna back off until he'd killed me so I took a breath and spoke._

_It was VERY weird. Everyone just froze and that never happens when I speak. In fact the opposite usually happens, people usually start to leave. _

_I sounded awful. I only tried one word and it came out all slurred and stil__ted like someone had mangled it up in my brain before my mouth__ let it out__. I wasn't even sure if any of them understood what I said. It didn't really matter anymore though because the second it was out there my stomach rolled and my ears rushed and that as they say was that._

_I must have blacked out. I'd usually say fainted but it isn't a very manly word is it and I kinda feel like I need to cling on to any 'manly' I might have left._

_So, here I am thinking about opening my eyes. I think I should._

_One. Ok, this time I WILL do it._

_Two. I'm good to go._

_Three. Is that someone talking?_

_OK. Let's just postpone the eye opening for a second. I can hear voices. __There are two of them. __Hey, that's Turk! __He's talking real low to someone. It sounds __like..._

"Whoa. Look who's awake! Good to see you little brother."

_Dan._

_I actually think I might cry. I have never been happy to see my brother in all my life except for this moment. __I'm not sure why. Wait, w__hat's that? Is he ...is he holding my hand? I have to look down to make sure._

"I wasn't holding your hand, I was just about to give you a Chinese burn but you woke up and ruined it." Dan pulled his hand away from JD's as he spoke.

"How are you feeling?" Turk moved up beside Dan and gently took JD's wrist to check his pulse. "You've been pretty much out of it since yesterday."

_What, h__ave I been out for a who__le day? Ow, Turk whatever you're doing to my hand it stings. What is that?_

Turks eyes followed JD's gaze down to his hand.

"It's just the IV for your meds. I know, it can sting. Don't worry it should be out tomorrow and you can take the painkillers orally."

_Pain__killers? For what?__ You know SCB I'm feeling a little on the nervous side right now so maybe you could explain to me the part where I lost a day and gained, judging by how I feel like I'm floating, a boat load of drugs._

"D'you remember what happened, you need me to fill you in a little?"

_Thank God you can read my mind!_

"You blacked out and things have been a little crazy since then." Turk paused, hoping JD would at least _try_ to say something. When he didn't he carried on.

"Darren tried to get you mobilised, remember? You seemed to be in a lot of pain and then you blacked out. After that Dr Cox got you down to X-ray, they checked you out and found fractures in two of your lumbar vertebrae." Turk lay JD's hand back down and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "We had to get you in a back brace and to do that we had to get the G-Tube out, so, you've been in surgery and ..."

"And now you're flat on your back wearing something that looks like Nana Hobs' girdle little bro." Dan grinned and snapped the gum he was chewing.

"Nicely put Dan. Maybe we could use your services when we have to tell people they're gonna die. I think it's your calling." Turk frowned at Dan before he turned back to JD. "That's pretty much it. G-Tube's out, we got you in a brace and on some pain meds. You should still be able to get back to your PT in a day or two."

Turk stared at JD for a moment. "You know lying down flat pretty much stops you from using that letter board..."

"And I'm not the best at working out spelling, Johnny..." Dan cut in before Turk carried on.

"Come on man, I know you can speak, I heard you, and yeah it sounded weird but that's what we expected which is why you have the speech therapist lined up." Turk coaxed. "Come on VB, for me."

JD closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

"Turk tells me it sounded like you had a mouth full of marbles." Dan said cringing as Turk immediately swatted him on the back of his head. "What? You did. Hey Johnny, remember when I did that experiment to find out how many marbles you could fit in your mouth at once?"

Turk laughed "How'd that work out?" He asked Dan.

"Well, you know Johnny can't go for more than a minute without speaking, he tried to and ended up ..."

"Ssss..wall..owed ... ffive." JD gasped out.

Turk and Dan stared at JD as he spoke. JD opened his eyes, feeling his face flush with embarrassment at how he sounded.

"And that's _exactly_ how he sounded." Dan quipped, his smile faltering momentarily.

Turk took JD's fingers and pressed them between his own. "Well done man. I knew you could do it."

"Sssoundss ba..ad." JD stuttered.

"I know man, but we'll work on it and it'll get better, I promise." Turk answered.

"C..c..can't. T..too t..tired." JD slurred back as he closed his eyes.

"Then we'll all be here to help when you feel like you can do it, right Dan?"

"Sure." Dan replied quickly, the word drowned out by the scraping of his chair as he rose abruptly and left the room.

JD looked at Turk as the door swung closed.

"Ccc..an't do it. Nnno ...pp..oin.t"

* * *

"Hey, what's a nice girl like you doing here all alone?" A gruff voice rang out behind Elliot and she felt a hand pat her behind. Letting out a strangled squeak Elliot spun around on her bar stool only to find Carla standing laughing. 

"Elliot, that's gotta be the third time I've used my scary truck driver voice on you and you fell for it again! It isn't even realistic."

"I know." Elliot whined as her shoulders slumped. "I think I fall for it because my inner voice has always warned me that by coming to a bar alone I'm asking to be abducted and raped by some tattooed guy with six toes and a name like Bubba. It's like a self fulfilling prophecy." She nodded to herself.

"Well, as we're not actually _in_ the films Deliverance or The Accused, you maybe don't need to listen to that particular inner voice Elliot." Carla frowned at her friend as she signalled the bartender for two more beers.

"Huh?" Elliot looked confused as she blew her bangs out of her face and swirled the dregs of beer around the bottom of her current bottle.

"You hitting it hard tonight?"

"You know me Carla."

"That's your first then, right?"

"Yup. I'd be a little drunk right now but just before you arrived I knocked it over and spilled more than half."

Carla smiled. "I missed you at the hospital today. And yesterday."

"I took a couple of shifts off." Elliot replied.

"Oh. Well look, thanks for agreeing to meet me. I thought maybe you were still mad at me." Carla said nervously.

Elliot bottom lip stuck out a little. "I was being a bitch wasn't I? Don't answer that! I was. I know I was, It's just ... I wanted to take care of him and help and let him know I was there for him and when he pushed me away for you I ..."

"Elliot. Breathe honey." Carla soothed as she pulled the warm bottle from Elliot's hand and pressed the new, cold one into it.

Elliot looked at her friend. "He doesn't want 'Dr Reid' right now does he?" She said quietly.

"He wants 'Elliot', his girlfriend." Carla smiled.

"I know. I just ... I don't trust 'Elliot the girlfriend' to do this. I trust 'Elliot the doctor'." Elliot looked down as she picked at the label on the bottle.

"Why? They're the same person aren't they?" Carla pressed.

"No, they're not! 'Elliot', plain, simple 'Elliot' makes a mess of everything Carla! I never make the right choices, never do the right thing, I'm not even sure ... Look, 'Elliot the doctor' may not be perfect but she's a damn sight better than the 'Elliot' who's just ... me."

"But that's what he wants right now, that's what he needs! JD _needs_ people in the roles he likes to define for them now more than ever, don't you understand? He has Turk to take his mind off things, he has me as a surrogate mom ... oh, don't look at me like that, you think I'm blind? That is exactly how he'd treat me if I let him get away with it and under normal circumstances I _wouldn't_ let him, mainly because it makes me feel old, but right now I'm not gonna pull that metaphorical rug from under his feet Elliot."

Carla gave Elliot a searching look, not convinced she understood.

"He has Dr Cox to give him all the bad news, present the hard choices and the medical view point. He doesn't need it from you too."

"So what little box do I fit in then? Like I said, the only thing I'm any good at is being a doctor. Doctor Elliot Reid." She signed distractedly.

"No, it's not all you're good at. JD obviously thinks you're good at being a girlfriend, so why don't you go do that?"

"I'm not sure I know how to in this situation Carla."

Carla let her head fall forward into her hands as she gave a strangled cry. "Elliot, you know I love telling people what to do right? Well even a pro like me is finding this advice session a little wearing!" Carla took a deep breath as she tried to get her temper under control. "OK, let's look at this from a different point of view. Do you get the same from my friendship as you do from JD's?"

Elliot blushed deeply and raised her eyebrows at her friend.

"I didn't mean like that Elliot." Carla snapped.

Silence stretched between them as Elliot squirmed in her seat. Finally she gave up on waiting for Carla to break the silence.

Elliot sighed. "JD's not like anyone I know."

"Why?"

"He ...um..He makes me feel .." Elliot faltered and rolled her eyes at Carla. "This is so embarrassing and I don't get what .."

"Elliot!" Carla snapped. "He makes you feel what?"

"Aagh, I don't know! I don't know, just ... loved, I guess." Elliot's voice rose an octave.

Carla raised her eyebrows in a way that told Elliot that if she didn't go on she'd be having her hair pulled real soon.

She carried on, her voice softening and becoming quiet. "When I've had a really crappy day, usually spent in the supply closet, he makes me feel..._comforted_ and when he .. um... touches me it's like I get a connection to another person who ...no...the _only_ other person in the world who can get me and even when he doesn't get me he still tries to show some...empathy... tries to be there, not actually doing anything to make stuff right ...he just ... he's just there... ready for when I want to talk..."

Carla looked across at her friend, a small smile on her face. "_That's_ what I'm talking about. Do that for him and you won't screw up." She said gently.

"Oh." Elliot replied, her voice as small as it had ever been.

* * *

"Feet." 

"I'm sorry?" Dan looked up from his soda at the tall guy looming over him.

"Your feet. They're in my way."

Dan shook his head in confusion.

"OK, genius. I don't hold this mop because it's a good look for me or because it's part of my disguise, it is in fact because I am a janitor and part of what I 'janit' is this canteen floor."

"You only just walked in here and there's the whole floor to do but you choose to start with the square under my feet. Huh." Dan mused.

"I got a system." The janitor replied casually.

Dan seemed to take a moment to ponder this before he spoke. "Seems reasonable." He swung his legs up and hooked his feet over the corner of the table as the Janitor plunged his mop into an empty metal bucket.

"There's no water in there." Dan gestured towards the bucket.

"Think of this as more of a pre-dust." The janitor replied his eyes narrowing at Dan.

"Thorough. I like it."

"You do? Well, thank you. I've been waiting my whole life for your endorsement. I can die happy now."

"Cool. Glad to be of service mopping buddy!" Dan grinned sincerely at the janitor and then turned his attention to waving at Turk as he watched the surgeon enter the empty canteen and make his way over to the table.

"Dan, are you coming back down to JD's room?" Turk asked as he leaned across the table, his hands gripping the back of one of the plastic chairs.

Dan struggled up in his chair and waved his soda can at Turk. "Just finishing up buddy."

"You've been gone for an hour."

"There was a wait at the machine." Dan nodded.

"Ok. What's the what?"

"What's the what with what?"

Turk rubbed his hands over his eyes. "I have had an aggressively long day Dan so please just be level with me here, OK? What is wrong?"

Dan held Turks gaze for a moment before he removed his gum from his mouth and set about sticking it to the side of the soda can.

"My boss called and they need me back at work first thing tomorrow, so it looks like I can't hang around."

"I thought you cleared a coupla days off?"

"I did but they had some of the regular staff call in sick and ... well you know how it is, right!" Dan smiled and pulled his feet off the table, grabbing his jacket up as he stood up.

"Yeah, I know how it is. You gonna bother to say bye or should I do that for you as well as all the visiting and supporting and moral boosting for _your_ brother."

Dan shrugged. "Johnny'll understand, that's the kind of ..."

"He might understand but does it occur to you that he might _need_ you right now, not to mention his mom, I mean is she ever gonna show her face?"

"You don't understand our family, mom, well... she's just not that good at this stuff and me, I'm not the kind of guy people "need" Turk. Never have been. "

"Bull. I don't care if your mom's so slack she makes Britney Spears look like Carol Ann Brady, your brother needs his family and you know it." Turk shoved the palm of his hand into Dan's shoulder, pushing him back a couple of steps.

"Hey, cool down. Of course I'm gonna say goodbye, and I'll be back in a couple of days. I'll clear a week off and I'll be back in time for when he starts that therapy thing he's got going on." Dan eyed Turk nervously. "And I'll talk to mom, OK? Are we cool?"

Turk nodded his head a couple of times, obviously trying to keep his mouth closed and rein in his anger. After a moment he pinned Dan with a firm gaze. "We'll be cool when you arrange that week off and get your ass back here to help." Dan nodded back and stepped away from the table and out of the canteen.

* * *

"Do you want another?" Carla asked Elliot. 

"No. I think I need to get some beauty sleep so I don't terrify my boyfriend in the morning. You know, when I go and visit him." She smiled at Carla.

"That's my girl!" Carla beamed back. "I'm gonna head out too." Carla slid off the stool and grabbed her purse and jacket, following Elliot out of the bar. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Carla had already turned the corner at the end of the block by the time Elliot had finished zipping up her jacket only to realise that she had left her scarf back in the bar. Sighing she turned and made her way back in.

She noticed the lost article of clothing as soon as she neared the bar. It was on the floor under the stool she had been sitting on.

"Great, it'll be covered in chips and crap now." She muttered to herself as she bent to retrieve it. She'd just snagged a corner of the material when she heard a deep voice behind her.

"So what's a nice girl like you doing here on her own?"

Elliot jumped up, banging her head on the bar stool as she did.

"Dammit Carla, twice in one night just gets old you know..."

Elliot closed her mouth as she peered into the face of a man standing right next to her.

"Are you ok?" He asked.

"Uh, yes. Thanks. I thought you were my friend."

"Does this Carla have a deep voice?"

"No, it's a joke, well she thinks ... Do I know you?"

"You're Dr Reid, right?"

"Right," Elliot stuttered, "but do I know you?"

"I'm hurt that you don't remember, but then you were a little shaken at the time. It's Jeff, uh Monroe, Detective Monroe."

Elliot squinted at the man in front of her for a moment until her memory finally caught up. "Oh, sure, sorry I'm not good with faces or names ... or people really." She faltered.

"Are you sure you didn't hit your head too hard?" He looked at her anxiously.

"No. Really, I'm fine." Elliot reassured him as she pushed her hair out of her eyes. "And I wasn't alone, my friend Carla was with me but she left, well we both left and I came back ..."

"For another drink?"

"For my scarf."

"Oh. Do you want another drink? Maybe with me?"

"With you?"

"Yes."

"No."

Detective Monroe laughed at Elliot's bluntness. "OK. That takes you right off the fence and me out of the game."

"Oh, I didn't mean to be sharp, I just ... I want to go to bed ... oh, no I didn't mean ... I need to go and get some sleep. I want to see JD in the morning, early, and not look like a troll."

"I don't think you could ever look like a troll Dr Reid."

Elliot snorted. "Oh, believe me I can. This one time in high school I ..." She stopped as she noticed the Detective staring deep into her eyes. "I gotta go, but thanks for the drink ...offer." She wrapped her scarf around her neck and turned to make her way out of the bar.

"OK. Take care. I'll see you in the morning." Detective Monroe called after her.

"In the morning?" Elliot turned back, a puzzled look on her face.

"Yeah, I'm coming in to the hospital to talk to your boyfriend. Your Chief of Medicine called us to let us know he'd woken up. I need to take a statement, see if he remembers anything."

Elliot nodded vaguely. "OK. See you tomorrow then."

Detective Monroe watched as the door swung shut after Elliot and smiled.


	12. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Turk leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees as he absently rolled his cereal bowl between his hands, not noticing when it tipped suddenly, depositing a large dollop of milk sodden oats on the rug between his bare feet.

"You are the dumbest creature on the face of this planet." He announced to the face opposite his own. "_The_ dumbest."

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't hear his wife step out of the bedroom and cross the floor.

"Turk, I think Rowdy is already aware of his shortcomings. It seems a little unfair of you to goad him like that first thing in the morning."

Her husband looked up at her. "Huh?"

"What is more worrying is the fact that I have reached a point in my life where I no longer think it's weird that you talk to a stuffed dead dog."

"Oh. I wasn't calling Rowdy dumb Carla." He screwed his face up in confusion. "Why would you think that?"

"Maybe it was the fact that you are sitting looking at him and calling him dumb?"

"I was talking about me." Turk huffed as he pushed himself up from the couch. "_I'm_ the dumbest person on the face of this planet."

Carla took in her husband's serious expression and moved over to him, lightly rubbing his arm.

"OK. Tell Carla, what's wrong?"

"Dan. He left."

"What do you mean he left? He just got here yesterday." Carla sounded confused.

Turk nodded and gave her a small, wry smile. "Well he's gone again."

"Is he gonna come back?" Carla asked.

"No," Turk watched as Carla's hands flew to her hips and her brow crinkled into a frown. "And baby, before you get started I gotta say you're preaching to the choir here!"

"Doesn't he get that JD needs him?"

Turk sighed resignedly. "I don't think he got much further than his own overwhelming discomfort at being in a hospital room with his brain damaged brother. He just couldn't deal."

"That's what he said?"

"Nah, he spun me a loada crap about getting back to work." Turk let out a small, mirthless laugh. "You know he didn't even spend more than fifteen minutes with JD before he bailed, I mean sure he'd hung round most of the day but as soon as JD was actually _conscious_ and the pressure to actually provide some level of support arose, he was outta there."

"Great." Carla whispered as she dumped herself down on the couch next to her husband.

"He didn't even say goodbye to him." Turk muttered as he scooted up to his wife, pulling her into a gentle hug. "And I didn't even have the stones to tell him he'd gone."

* * *

_Hmm. That's __**very**__ nice. Since when did the nurses in this place wake patients with smoochie kisses. Whoa and a little tongue!_

_Oh God, I hope it isn't Laverne or Paul. Oh no, brain stop, stop thinking now and mouth stop kissing back in case it is Laverne! _

_Or Paul! I meant to say Paul as well, although on balance I would definitely consider Paul if I did have to choose between ..._

_Oh, for the love of God why can't I just stop thinking!_

"And I thought this would be a quick wake up call."

_Elliot! It's Elliot; oh it is so good to see you! It feels like days since ... when were you here last? It's all a bit blurry and I can't quite remember._

"Oh, so you _are_ awake." Elliot pulled away from him and sat on the edge of the bed. "I think you faked for a minute to get more tongue." She smiled hesitantly. "I'm sorry I bailed the other morning. I thought maybe you didn't want me helping and then I realised that you really _didn't_ want _me_ helping and then I had to go and sulk about it for a while until Carla good and kicked my butt with one of her more painful 'talking - at – you' sessions. So, here I am, butt kicked and now understanding that what you need from me and saying... Um... sorry. I'm sorry." Elliot blinked a tear away and leaned forward draping her arm gently across JDs chest, pressing her face into the side of his neck.

"Mm sssorrry ...ttoo"

"What?" She replied as she snuggled against him. Suddenly she bolted upright. "What? You spoke, JD you spoke! I'll get Dr Cox!" She moved to get up but JDs left hand suddenly found its way to hers and tried to pull her back.

"Nno, s'o..kk"

"Did this happen yesterday?"

JD nodded, suddenly looking tired again.

"Why didn't Carla tell me? I miss a couple of shifts and... " She trailed off, looking embarrassed. "I didn't ask her. I saw her last night and I didn't even ask. JD, I'm a horrible girlfriend."

JD stared at her as she sat on the edge of his bed looking forlorn, picking at a thread on her scrubs top. Suddenly he laughed. He hadn't heard himself laugh for what felt like forever and the noise made him jump.

_I laughed. I laughed and it sounded like me, it sounded like it's always sounded! _

Elliot stared at him. "It's not funny JD. I'm the worst girlfriend in history."

_You just made me laugh._

"My mom was right."

_And it sounded like me; it sounded like the old me._

"I bet there's a little bell that went off in her head just then, an 'Elliot just proved me right bell' that rings every t..." Elliot's monologue was stopped by JD tugging on her hand.

"B...best ...g..g..." JD couldn't get the word to come out.

"Girlfriend?" Elliot supplied, her brow crinkling.

JD nodded. "Ll..ove ... y..y.ou."

Elliot leaned forward and cupped his face in her hands. "I love you too." She whispered as she pressed her lips against his.

Suddenly the door to the room swung open and Dr Cox was almost beside the bed before Elliot had chance to pull away from JD. Her face flushed and she nervously searched the room for something to be doing.

"Dr Cox I was just ... well I was about to ...um.. Check JD's chart." She finished triumphantly.

"Well that's just admirable Barbie being as you are not his doctor and last time I looked you had a full service of neglected patients of your own oh and in the interests of those poor patients I feel it's my duty to let you in on a little secret."

Elliot crinkled her brow in confusion as she stared at Dr Cox.

"The charts, well we usually keep 'em at the foot of the beds and not stuck to the patients faces, see it tends to make the whole reading of them thing a little easier." He flashed her an almost maniacal grin as he bounced up and down on his heels. "Anyway enough of us and the job that you are so obviously not doing, rumour has it that Kathy here got her chat back." He turned to stare at JD who'd been silent since he entered the room.

JD nodded.

"Oh you so do not get away with that Newbie. I want to hear a full sentence so I can go ahead and get over the fact that you can now once again annoy the living crap outta me." He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"Dr Cox..." Elliot interrupted.

"Oh no Barbie, don't you dare. I know it's every woman's dream to have a man they literally _have to_ talk for so I hate to rob you of your moment but I want your girlfriend to wear the pants and do the talking today." His words were sarcastic and laced with amusement as he spoke but when he fixed Elliot with his gaze she could see he was serious.

"Come on Baby Jane let's hear it."

JD swallowed. It wasn't just the fact that anything he did say sounded distorted and slurred it was that he didn't actually know what to say. 'Hey Dr Cox, how are you doing?' seemed more than a little empty while 'Hey I feel and sound like crap' was, to be honest, totally redundant. That and the fact that it would probably take him a good half hour to say either of those sentences left him back at square one; wordless and more than a little humiliated at not even being able to speak.

"How about we just start with me saying I'm glad you finally spoke and you saying 'thanks'?" Perry asked.

"Th..th.ank.ss" JD slurred out. "Ss..ound...h..horr..horr..." JD took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut. "bb..ad."

Elliot noticed Dr Cox's jaw tighten and his shoulders slide down almost imperceptibly and she knew it was worse than he had hoped.

"You sound just fine kid, just fine." He ran his hand through his hair and nodded.

* * *

Detective Jeff Monroe flipped down the visor in front of him and leaned against the steering wheel in order to get a better view of his teeth. Grinning into the tiny mirror he squeaked his forefinger across them once or twice and then performed a cursory tongue sweep before snapping a quick smile at his partner who sat next to him.

Lexy Harris groaned inwardly. She's seen this style of pre-interview preening before and it never ended well. She drew in a deep breath as Jeff smoothed the front of his shirt and flicked at an imaginary piece of lint on the cuff of his suit jacket.

"So," She began lazily, "our victim. Let me guess, he's single and lives with his dear elderly mother whom you met at the hospital when you did the pre-lim report?"

Jeff just laughed.

"No?" Detective Harris carried on. "Ok, then he's gay and one half of the most adorable gay couple you've ever met and you met the other half when you did the pre-lim reports."

Jeff raised his eyebrows at her as he reached across to the glove compartment for his note book.

"Wait!" Lexy gasped as she pressed her finger tips to her temples. "It's almost like I'm psychic ... Yes that's it... this must be a vision! Our victim has a hot girlfriend whom you met when you did the pre-lim reports and now she's being treated to the teeth scrub and cologne assault of Detective Jeff Monroe! Goddamn it Jeff please tell me you are not going to do this again! Look at the whole heap of shit it got you in last time not to mention I had to work for six months, yes _six months_ with stinky O'Connor on traffic, all because you and your tail don't know when to quit!"

Jeff smiled patiently at his flustered partner as he positioned his shades on his nose and brushed his hand through his hair. "What can I say sexy Lexy, the girl's into me. I can tell." Winking under his shades Jeff Monroe hopped out of the car, slammed the door and started purposefully toward the main entrance of Sacred Heart.

* * *

Perry trudged down the corridor to Dr Shulers office. He wasn't enjoying today and it had only just started. His head was pounding, Jack had kept him up half the night and Jordan, who couldn't be woken by an earthquake, had been no help. But that wasn't the real reason he was so pissed and he knew it. He was pissed at himself for Christ sake, pissed because he'd been so stupidly _hopeful_! Him, Perry Cox, hopeful. He snorted to himself at how ridiculous he'd been. He didn't know why he'd done it, expected JD to be ok once he could speak. He'd seen how his body had reacted to the first simple tests Schuler had performed so logic, _logic_, Perry Cox's firmest friend, had dictated that his speech would be just as badly affected but still he'd hoped.

All he had wanted was for Newbie to be the same old verbally annoying kid and then Perry could cope with the physical, if he could just get that one sense of normality back, he could cope, but now he was less sure and a Perry Cox who is unsure of himself is not a happy Perry Cox.

He didn't knock at Schuler's door when it leapt up at him. In true Cox style he just barged his way in.

"Good to see you Perry." Schuler drawled without even looking up.

"I have a plan, for this PT buddy crap. Now this thing with his back should be OK with the brace on so we need to get him up and out of that bed soon." Perry paced the carpet his fingers alternating between shoving through his hair and lacing together to crack his knuckles. "I don't think the time your two track suited specials can give him or me joining in occasionally will be enough so I'm gonna talk to Satan and get some time off. It fits in well with me because Jordan tried to turn our tardy nanny into stone this morning and now, well, we have no nanny, so I'll be bringing Jack into the crèche here but some of the time he'll need to be with me, so I figure I can get Newbie into the therapy room and Jack can play on the mats. Whaddya think?"

"Are you offering to take time off your beloved job to help a fellow human being, at no gain for yourself?"

Perry stared at the other doctor and gritted his teeth. "Yes."

"OK. It's a good idea. Like I said before the more one on one he gets the faster he'll improve. The buddy system usually helps so this could only help more. Darren has a session planned tomorrow at ten. Be there and learn, oh and let Dr Turk know too will you? He's been eager to help as well."

Perry made for the door but Schuler interrupted his progress.

"I meant what I said about learning from Darren Perry."

Perry rolled his eyes at Schuler.

"I mean it. Darren knows what he's doing and you are well aware that physical therapy isn't just a matter of bending arms and legs, you can do more damage doing it wrong so you will listen to Darren or he will throw you out."

"It's a deal." Perry muttered, nodding his head.

"Better go see Satan then," Schuler smirked. "He's gonna want a piece of your soul for this Perry."

"He's already got it my friend, he's already got it." Perry replied as he left the room.

* * *

JD lay on his back staring at the ceiling in his room. It wasn't anything new, it was all he did now but what was new was the way he was feeling. He'd gotten used to feeling angry and totally confused by turns but the feelings he was experiencing now were new and he couldn't quite name them.

Anger _was_ in the mix somewhere, he knew that, the way he couldn't stop himself from shaking told him that, but at the same time he felt ... bereft, inconsolable, _sorrowful_ and mostly humiliated.

And it was all that new guys fault. And who the hell was he anyway? JD hoped Elliot would come back and explain to him what had just happened but he didn't hold out much hope.

He'd fallen asleep, a new and disturbing talent he had that disjointed his days and fragmented his memories until he wasn't sure about anything. When he woke up it was to four people entering his room. Elliot was there and Ted was with her and suddenly he was explaining that there were police officers with them. At that point a sharply suited arm thrust in front of him with the hand extended and when JD hadn't grabbed the hand and shaken it immediately his own limp right hand was grabbed from where it lay across his stomach and shaken.

"Hey, kid, I'm Detective Monroe and this is Detective Harris. We're working your case and we needed to see if you remembered anything about what happened."

_Kid? Kid! We're probably the same age._

"I know your colleague here tells me that you can't really speak too well at the moment but can you give it a try?" He didn't wait for JD to nod. "Do you remember the moment you were attacked?"

JD shook his head.

"OK. Anything like a sound or smell, any words you may have heard?"

JD closed his eyes and thought. "P-pp-ushed a-and d-d-d..." JD struggled over the word.

"Looks like this'll take a while." Monroe muttered quietly to his partner who stood next to him.

_Hey, I'm right here jerk! I can here you and I'm trying my best. You try getting hit with a goddamn baseball bat and see how y ... A baseball bat? A baseball bat, that's what I heard fall on the ground. Shit, shit, why would someone ... do??_

"B-bat. P-pushed ... n d-dropped-d m-my I-P-ppod. H-hheard it d-drop."

"Your I-Pod?"

JD shook his head. "B-bassse b-ball b-bat."

JD felt a surge of pride flood his stomach. He'd remembered something. It wasn't much, he knew but to have dragged it from his tangled memories that really held nothing of the attack felt like a miracle to JD and he felt his throat tighten and his eyes prickle. He'd remembered and maybe, just maybe that meant something. Maybe it meant he could get other stuff back too. Blinking he let his gaze fall back on the detective, the detective who was giving him a condescending smile and patting the back of his hand.

"That's great kid." He said patronisingly, as if JD achievement meant nothing at all. Monroe turned his back to the bed and spoke to Elliot and Ted. His words were too quick for JD to hear but he knew they were talking about him and he knew that what felt like an achievement to him was nothing to the detective and in that second JD felt stupid for being so proud of that tiny thread of memory.

Suddenly he was aware of the table being wheeled over to the bed and a piece of paper sliding across it, a pen rolling on top of that.

"We just need you to sign that the interview has taken place." The female detective said gently.

"He's not ... well I could do it." Elliot said.

"Sorry, it has to be the victim." Monroe replied his hand resting comfortingly on Elliot's shoulder. A move not unnoticed by JD. "It's not a problem." He continued, moving back to the bedside. "It just has to be a mark that's witnessed." Saying that he took JD's right hand in his and curled the pen into his limp fingers, his own much larger hand pressing the pen into JD's palm. He scanned the paper and then pulled JD's hand toward the bottom.

"Right here. A cross will do buddy." And with that he scrawled on the paper, his hand guiding JD's, forcing it to make a wobbly cross, the pen digging uncomfortably into JD's fingers, and then let JD's hand rest back on the table as he folded the paper and slid it into his jacket.

_You could have asked and I would have tried. __I'M SITTING RIGHT HERE, YOU_ _COULD HAVE ASKED ME TO TRY!_

"I think we're done." Monroe announced to everyone but JD and the whole party stepped awkwardly to the door and left.

_You could have asked me, you could have talked_ _to_ _me like I was an adult... you could have just asked me, you arrogant prick! And I saw you squeezing my girlfriends shoulder!_

JD lay back and gazed up to the ceiling, trying to calm his breathing and the shaking that had now taken hold of him, the fingers of his left hand twisting the fabric of his blankets.

"Are you trying to damage hospital property Scooter Pie, because that blanket now has a hole in it."

JD hadn't heard the door swing back open and he really, really didn't want to deal with the Janitor right now. He closed his eyes, hoping he'd be gone when he opened them but all he succeeded in doing was squeezing a couple of fat tears out of the corners of his eyes.

"OK cry baby, I won't report you this time. Besides I'm not in here in an official capacity, I'm just hiding."

JD opened his eyes and looked at the Janitor.

The Janitor sniffed. "Yeah, some jerk in a suit failed to read my strategically placed wet floor sign and ended up face down in the hall. He ripped the knee of his pants." The janitor shoved his mop into his bucket and screwed the water out of it before slapping it onto the floor. "Don't understand his problem. He could always make them into shorts. They'd make good shorts."

JD closed his eyes and smiled despite the tears still running down his face.


End file.
